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VICTORY 


THE     MODERN    LIBRARY 

OF    THE    WORLD'S    BEST   BOOKS 

The  publishers  will  be  pleased  to  send,  upon  request,  an 
illustrated  folder  setting  forth  the  purpose  and  scope  of 
THE  MODERN  LIBRARY, and  listing  each  volume 
in  the  series.  Every  reader  of  books  will  find  titles  he  has 
been  looking  for,  handsomely  printed,  in  unabridged 
editions,  and  at  an  unusually  low  price. 


Q}:d 


ory 


I. 


^y 


JOSEPH    CONRAD 


THE 


MODERN   LIBRARY 


NEW  YORK 


K    f 


COPYRIGHT,    I  9  I  5,    1921,    BY 
DOUBLEDAY,    PAGE    &    COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,    I  9  I  5,    BY   JOSEPH    CONRAD 


Random  House  is  the  publisher  of 
THE    IVI  0  D  E  R  x\    LIBRARY 

BENNETT  A.  CERF   •  DONALD  S.  KLOPFER  •  ROBERT  K.  HAAS 

Manufactured  in  the  United  States  of  America 

Printed  by  Parkway  Printing  Company       Paper  by  Richard  Bauer  &  Co. 

Bound  by  H.  Wolff 


TO 
PERCEVAL 

AND 

MAISIE    GIBBON 


II 


NOTE  TO  THE  FIRST  EDITION 

THE  last  word  of  this  novel  was  written  on  the  29th 
of  May,  1 91 4.  And  that  last  word  was  the  single 
word  of  the  title. 

Those  were  the  times  of  peace.  Now  that  the  moment 
of  publication  approaches  I  have  been  considering  the 
discretion  of  altering  the  title-page.  The  word  Victory, 
the  shining  and  tragic  goal  of  noble  effort,  appeared  too 
great,  too  august,  to  stand  at  the  head  of  a  mere  novel. 
There  was  also  the  possibility  of  falling  under  the  sus- 
picion of  commercial  astuteness  deceiving  the  public  into 
the  belief  that  the  book  had  something  to  do  with  war. 

Of  that,  however,  I  was  not  afraid  very  much.  What 
influenced  my  decision  most  were  the  obscure  promptings 
of  that  pagan  residuum  of  awe  and  wonder  which  lurks 
still  at  the  bottom  of  our  old  humanity.  Victory  was 
the  last  word  I  had  written  in  peace  time.  It  was  the  last 
literary  thought  which  had  occurred  to  me  before  the 
doors  of  the  Temple  of  Janus  flying  open  with  a  crash 
shook  the  minds,  the  hearts,  the  consciences  of  men  all 
over  the  world.  Such  coincidence  could  not  be  treated 
lightly.  And  I  made  up  my  mind  to  let  the  word  stand, 
in  the  same  hopeful  spirit  in  which  some  simple  citizen 
of  Old  Rome  would  have  "accepted  the  Omen." 

The  second  point  on  which  I  wish  to  offer  a  remark 
is  the  existence  (in  the  novel)  of  a  person  named  Schom- 
berg. 

That  I  believe  him  to  be  true  goes  without  saying.  I 
am  not  likely  to  offer  pinchbeck  wares  to  my  public 
consciously.     Schomberg  is  an  old  member  of  my  com- 

vii 


\Tii  NOTE   TO   THE   FIRST   EDITION 

pany.  A  very  subordinate  personage  in  Lord  Jim  as 
far  back  as  the  year  1899,  he  became  notably  active  in  a 
certain  short  story  of  mine  published  in  1902.  Here  he 
appears  in  a  still  larger  part,  true  to  life  (I  hope),  but 
also  true  to  himself.  Only,  in  this  instance,  his  deeper 
passions  come  into  play,  and  thus  his  grotesque  psy- 
cholog}-  is  completed  at  last. 

I  don't  pretend  to  say  that  this  is  the  entire  Teutonic 
psycholog}' ;  but  it  is  indubitably  the  psycholog}'  of  a 
Teuton.  ^ly  object  in  mentioning  him  here  is  to  bring 
out  the  fact  that,  far  from  being  the  incarnation  of  re- 
cent animosities,  he  is  the  creature  of  my  old,  deep-seated 
and,  as  vt  were,  impartial  conviction. 

J.  c. 


AUTHOR^S    NOTE 


On  approaching  the  task  of  writing  this  Note  fo;* 
**Victcry''  the  first  thing  I  am  conscious  of  is  the  actual 
nearness  of  the  book,  its  nearness  to  me  personally,  tp 
the  vanished  mood  in  which  it  was  written  and  to  the 
mixed  feelings  aroused  by  the  critical  notices  the  book 
obtained  when  first  published  almost  exactly  a  year 
after  the  beginning  of  the  great  war.  The  writing  of  ijt 
was  finished  in  191 4  long  before  the  murder  of  an  Ausp 
trian  Archduke  sounded  the  first  note  of  a  warning  for  ^ 
world  already  full  of  doubts  and  fears.  I 

The  contemporaneous  very  short  Author's  Note  which 
is  preserved  in  this  edition  bears  sufficient  witness  tp 
the  feelings  with  which  I  consented  to  the  publication  of 
the  book.  The  fact  of  the  book  having  been  published 
in  the  United  States  early  in  the  year  made  it  difficult 
to  delay  its  appearance  in  England  any  longer.  It  came 
out  in  the  thirteenth  month  of  the  war,  and  my  conscience 
was  troubled  by  the  awful  incongruity  of  throwing  thi^ 
bit  of  imagined  drama  into  the  welter  of  reality,  tragip 
enough  in  all  conscience  but  even  more  cruel  than  tragip 
and  more  inspiring  than  cruel.  It  seemed  awfully  pre- 
sumptuous to  think  there  would  be  eyes  to  spare  for 
those  pages  in  a  community  which  in  the  crash  of  the 
big  guns  and  in  the  din  of  brave  words  expressing  the 
truth  of  an  indomitable  faith  could  not  but  feel  the  edge 
of  a  sharp  knife  at  its  throat. 

The  unchanging  Man  of  history  is  wonderfully  adap- 
table cloth  by  his  power  of  endurance  aiid  in  his  ca^ 
pacity  for  detachment.     The  fact  seems  to  be  that  the 


X  AUTHOR'S  NOTE 

play  of  his  destiny  is  too  great  for  his  fears  and  too 
mysterious  for  his  understanding.  Were  the  trump  of 
the  Last  Judgment  to  sound  suddenly  on  a  working  day 
the  musician  at  his  piano  would  go  on  with  his  per- 
formance of  Beethoven's  Sonata  and  the  cobbler  at  his 
stall  stick  to  his  last  in  undisturbed  confidence  in  the 
virtues  of  the  leather.  And  with  perfect  propriety.  For 
what  are  we  to  let  ourselves  be  disturbed  by  an  angel's 
vengeful  music  too  mighty  for  our  ears  and  too  awful 
for  our  terrors?  Thus  it  happens  to  us  to  be  struck 
suddenly  by  the  lightning  of  wrath.  The  reader  will  go 
on  reading  if  the  book  pleases  him  and  the  critic  will  go 
on  criticizing  with  that  faculty  of  detachment  born  per- 
haps from  a  sense  of  infinite  littleness  and  which  is  yet 
the  only  faculty  that  seems  to  assimilate  man  to  the 
immortal  gods. 

It  is  only  when  the  catastrophe  matches  the  natural 
obscurity  of  our  fate  that  even  the  best  representative 
of  the  race  is  liable  to  lose  his  detachment.  It  is  very 
obvious  that  on  the  arrival  of  the  gentlemanly  Mr.  Jones, 
the  single-minded  Ricardo  and  the  faithful  Pedro,  Heyst, 
the  man  of  universal  detachment,  loses  his  mental  self- 
possession,  that  fine  attitude  before  the  universally  ir- 
remediable which  wears  the  name  of  stoicism.  It  is  all  a 
matter  of  proportion.  There  should  have  been  a  remedy 
for  that  sort  of  thing.  And  yet  there  is  no  remedy.  Behind 
this  minute  instance  of  life's  hazards  Heyst  sees  the 
power  of  blind  destiny.  Besides,  Heyst  in  his  fine  detach- 
ment had  lost  the  habit  of  asserting  himself.  I  don't  mean 
the  courage  of  self-assertion,  either  moral  or  physical, 
but  the  mere  way  of  it,  the  trick  of  the  thing,  the  readi- 
ness of  mind  and  the  turn  of  the  hand  that  come  without 
reflection  and  lead  the  man  to  excellence  in  life,  in  art, 
in  crime,  in  virtue  and  for  the  matter  of  that,  even  in  love. 
Thinking  is  the  great  enemy  of  perfection.  The  habit  of 
profound  reflection,  I  am  compelled  to  say,  is  the  most 


AUTHOR'S  NOTE  xi 

pernicious  of  all  the  habits   formed  by  the  civilized  man. 

But  I  wouldn't  be  suspected  even  remotely  of  making 
fun  of  Axel  Heyst.  I  have  always  liked  him.  The  flesh 
and  blood  individual  who  stands  behind  the  infinitely 
more  familiar  figure  of  the  book  I  remember  as  a  mysteri- 
ous Swede  right  enough.  Whether  he  was  a  baron,  too,  I 
am  not  so  certain.  He  himself  never  laid  a  claim  to  that 
distinction.  His  detachment  was  too  great  to  make  any 
claims  big  or  small  on  one's  credulity.  I  will  not  say  where 
I  met  him  because  I  fear  to  give  my  readers  a  wrong 
impression,  since  a  marked  incongruity  between  a  man  and 
his  surroundings  is  often  a  very  misleading  circumstance. 
We  became  very  friendly  for  a  time  and  I  would  not 
like  to  expose  him  to  unpleasant  suspicions  though,  per- 
sonally, I  am  sure  he  would  have  been  indifferent  to  sus- 
picions as  he  was  indifferent  to  all  the  other  disadvantages 
of  life.  He  was  not  the  whole  Heyst  of  course;  he  is 
only  the  physical  and  moral  foundation  of  my  Heyst  laid 
on  the  ground  of  a  short  acquaintance.  That  it  was  short 
was  certainly  not  my  fault,  for  he  had  charmed  me  by 
the  mere  amenity  of  his  detachment  which,  in  this  case, 
I  cannot  help  thinking  he  had  carried  to  excess.  He  went 
away  from  his  rooms  without  leaving  a  trace.  I  wondered 
where  he  had  gone  to — ^but  now  I  know.  He  vanished 
from  my  ken  only  to  drift  into  this  adventure  that,  un- 
avoidable, waited  for  him  in  a  world  which  he  persisted  in 
looking  upon  as  a  malevolent  shadow  spinning  in  the  sun- 
light. Often  in  the  course  of  years  an  expressed  sentiment, 
the  particular  sense  of  a  phrase  heard  casually,  would 
recall  him  to  my  mind  so  that  I  have  fastened  on  to  him 
many  words  heard  on  other  men's  lips  and  belonging 
to  other  men's  less  perfect,  less  pathetic  moods. 

The  same  observation  will  apply  mutatis  mutandis  to 
Mr.  Jones,  who  is  built  on  a  much  slenderer  connection. 
Mr.  Jones  (or  whatever  his  name  was)  did  not  drift 
away  from  me.  He  turned  his  back  on  me  and  walked 


iii  AUTHOR'S   NOTE 

out  of  the  room.  It  was  in  a  little  hotel  in  the  Island  of 
St.  Thomas  in  the  West  Indies  (in  the  year  '75)  where 
•we  found  him  one  hot  afternoon  extended  on  three  chairs, 
all  alone  in  the  loud  buzzing  of  flies  to  which  his  immo- 
bility and  his  cadaverous  aspect  gave  a  most  gruesome 
significance.  Our  invasion  must  have  displeased  him  be- 
cause he  got  off  the  chairs  brusquely  and  walked  out  leav- 
ing with  me  an  indelibly  weird  impression  of  his  thin 
shanks.  One  of  the  men  with  me  said  that  the  fellow  was 
the  most  desperate  gambler  he  had  ever  come  across.  I 
said:  "A  professional  sharper?"  and  got  for  answer: 
"He's  a  terror ;  but  I  must  say  that  up  to  a  certain  point 
he  will  play  fair.  .  .  ."I  wonder  what  the  point  was.  I 
never  saw  him  again  because  I  believe  he  went  straight 
On  board  a  mail-boat  which  left  within  the  hour  for  other 
ports  of  call  in  the  direction  of  Aspinall.  Mr.  Jones's 
characteristic  insolence  belongs  to  another  man  of  a  quite 
different  type.  I  will  say  nothing  as  to  the  origins  of  his 
mentality  because  I  don't  intend  to  make  any  damaging 
admissions. 

It  so  happened  that  the  ver}^  same  year  Ricardo — ^the 
physical  Ricardo — was  a  fellow  passenger  of  mine  on 
board  an  extremely  small  and  extremely  dirty  little 
schooner,  during  a  four  days'  passage  between  two  places 
in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  whose  names  don't  matter.  For 
the  most  part  he  lay  on  deck  aft  as  it  were  at  my  feet, 
and  raising  himself  from  time  to  time  on  his  elbow  would 
talk  about  himself  and  go  on  talking,  not  exactly  to  me 
or  even  at  me  (he  would  not  even  look  up  but  kept  his 
e)'es  fixed  on  the  deck)  but  more  as  if  communing  in  a 
low  voice  with  his  familiar  devil.  Now  and  then  he  would 
give  me  a  glance  and  make  the  hairs  of  his  stiff  little 
moustache  stir  quaintly.  His  eyes  were  green,  and  to  this 
day  every  cat  I  see  reminds  me  of  the  exact  contour  of 
his  face.  What  he  was  travelling  for  or  what  was  his 
business  in  Hfe  he  never  confided  to  me.  Truth  to  say 


AUTHOR'S  NOTE  xiii 

the  only  passenger  on  board  that  schooner  who  could 
have  talked  openly  about  his  activities  and  purposes  was 
a  very  snuffy  and  conversationally  delightful  friar,  the 
Superior  of  a  convent,  attended  by  a  very  young  lay 
brother,  of  a  particularly  ferocious  countenance.  We  had 
with  us  also,  lying  prostrate  in  the  dark  and  unspeakable 
cuddy  of  that  schooner,  an  old  Spanish  gentleman,  owner 
of  much  luggage  and,  as  Ricardo  assured  me,  very  ili, 
indeed.  Ricardo  seemed  to  be  either  a  servant  or  the  con- 
fidant of  that  aged  and  distinguished-looking  invalid,  wh^ 
early  on  the  passage  held  a  long  murmured  conversation 
with  the  friar,  and  after  that  did  nothing  but  groan  feebly,, 
smoke  cigarettes  and  now  and  then  call  for  Martin  in 
a  voice  full  of  pain.  Then  he  who  has  become  Ricardo  in 
the  book  would  go  below  into  that  beastly  and  noisome 
hole,  remain  there  mysteriously,  and  coming  up  on  deck 
again  with  a  face  on  which  nothing  could  be  read,  would 
as  likely  as  not  resume  for  my  edification  the  exposition 
of  his  moral  attitude  toward  life  illustrated  by  striking 
particular  instances  of  the  most  atrocious  complexion. 
Did  he  mean  to  frighten  me?  Or  seduce  me?  Or  astonish 
me?  Or  arouse  my  admiration?  All  he  did  was  to  arouse 
my  amused  incredulity.  As  scoundrels  go  he  was  far  from 
being  a  bore.  For  the  rest  my  innocence  was  so  great 
then  that  I  could  not  take  his  philosophy  seriously.  All 
the  time  he  kept  one  ear  turned  to  the  cuddy  in  the  man- 
ner of  a  devoted  servant,  but  I  had  the  idea  that  in  some 
way  or  other  he  had  imposed  the  connection  on  the  invalid 
for  some  end  of  his  own.  The  reader  therefore  won't  be 
surprised  to  hear  that  one  morning  I  was  told  without 
any  particular  emotion  by  the  padrone  of  the  schooner 
that  the  "Rich  man"  down  there  was  dead:  He  had  died 
in  the  night.  I  don't  remember  ever  being  so  moved  by 
the  desolate  end  of  a  complete  stranger.  I  looked  down 
the  skylight,  and  there  was  the  devoted  Martin  busy 
cording  cowhide  trunks  belonging  to  the  deceased  whose 


iiv  A^THOR^S  NOTE 

White  beard  and  hooked  nose  were  the  only  parts  I  could 
make  out  in  the  dark  depths  of  a  horrible  stuffy  bunk. 

As  it  fell  calm  in  the  course  of  the  afternoon  and  con- 
tinued calm  during  all  that  night  and  the  terrible,  flaming 
day,  the  late  "Rich  man"  had  to  be  thrown  overboard 
at  sunset,  though  as  a  matter  of  fact  we  were  in  sight 
pf  the  low,  pestilential,  mangrove-lined  coast  of  our  desti- 
nation. The  excellent  Father  Superior  mentioned  to  me 
with  an  air  of  immense  commiseration:  "The  poor  man 
has  left  a  young  daughter."  Who  was  to  look  after  her 
1  don't  know,  but  I  saw  the  devoted  Martin  taking  the 
trunks  ashore  with  great  care  just  before  I  landed  myself. 
I  would  perhaps  have  tracked  the  ways  of  that  man  of 
immense  sincerity  for  a  little  while  but  I  had  some  of  my 
own  very  pressing  business  to  attend  to,  which  in  the  end 
got  mixed  up  with  an  earthquake  and  so  I  had  no  time  to 
give  to  Ricardo.  The  reader  need  not  be  told  that  I  have 
not  forgotten  him,  though. 

My  contact  with  the  faithful  Pedro  was  much  shorter 
and  my  observation  of  him  was  less  complete  but  incom- 
parably more  anxious.  It  ended  in  a  sudden  inspiration 
to  get  out  of  his  way.  It  was  in  a  hovel  of  sticks  and  mats 
by  the  side  of  a  path.  As  I  went  in  there  only  to  ask  for 
a  bottle  of  lemonade  I  have  not  to  this  day  the  slightest 
idea  what  in  my  appearance  or  actions  could  have  roused 
his  terrible  ire.  It  became  manifest  to  me  less  than  two 
minutes  after  I  had  set  eyes  on  him  for  the  first  time,  and 
though  immensely  surprised  of  course  I  didn't  stop  to 
think  it  out.  I  took  the  nearest  short  cut — ^through  the 
wall.  This  bestial  apparition  and  a  certain  enormous  buck 
nigger  encountered  in  Haiti  only  a  couple  of  months  after- 
wards, have  fixed  my  conception  of  blind,  furious,  un- 
reasoning rage,  as  manifested  in  the  human  animal,  to 
the  end  of  my  days.  Of  the  nigger  I  used  to  dream  for 
years  afterwards.  Of  Pedro  never.  The  impression  was 
less  vivid.  I  got  away  from  him  too  quickly. 


AUTHOR'S  NOTE  xv 

It  seems  to  me  but  natural  that  those  three  buried  in 
a  corner  of  my  memory  should  suddenly  get  out  into  the 
light  of  the  world — so  natural  that  I  offer  no  excuse  for 
their  existence.  They  were  there,  they  had  to  come  out; 
and  this  is  a  sufficient  excuse  for  a  writer  of  tales  who 
had  taken  to  his  trade  without  preparation,  or  premedita- 
tion and  without  any  moral  intention  but  that  which  per- 
vades the  whole  scheme  of  this  world  of  senses. 

Since  this  Note  is  mostly  concerned  with  personal  con- 
tacts and  the  origins  of  the  persons  in  the  tale,  I  am 
bound  also  to  speak  of  Lena,  because  if  I  were  to  leave 
her  out  it  would  look  like  a  slight ;  and  nothing  would  be 
further  from  my  thoughts  than  putting  a  slight  on  Lena. 
If  of  all  the  personages  involved  in  the  "mystery  of  Sam- 
buran"  I  have  lived  longest  with  Heyst  (or  with  him  I 
call  Heyst)  it  was  at  her,  whom  I  call  Lena,  that  I  have 
looked  the  longest  and  with  a  most  sustained  attention. 
This  attention  originated  in  idleness  for  which  I  have  a 
natural  talent.  One  evening  I  wandered  into  a  cafe,  in  a 
town  not  of  the  tropics  but  of  the  South  of  France.  It 
was  filled  with  tobacco  smoke,  the  hum  of  voices,  the 
rattling  of  dominoes  and  the  sounds  of  strident  music. 
The  orchestra  was  rather  smaller  than  the  one  that  per- 
formed at  Schomberg's  hotel,  had  the  air  more  of  a  family 
party  than  of  an  enlisted  band,  and,  I  must  confess, 
seemed  rather  more  respectable  than  the  Zangiacomo 
musical  enterprise.  It  was  less  pretentious  also,  more 
homely  and  familiar,  so  to  speak,  insomuch  that  in  the 
intervals  when  all  the  performers  left  the  platform  one 
of  them  went  amongst  the  marble  tables  collecting  offer- 
ings of  sous  and  francs  in  a  battered  tin  receptacle  recall- 
ing the  shape  of  a  sauceboat.  It  was  a  girl.  Her  detach- 
ment from  her  task  seems  to  me  now  to  have  equalled  or 
even  surpassed  Heyst's  aloofness  from  all  the  mental 
degradations  to  which  a  man's  intelligence  is  exposed  in 
its   way   through   life.    Silent   and   wide-eyed   she   went 


xvi  AUTHOR'S  NOTE 

from  table  to  table  with  the  air  of  a  sleep-walker  and 
with  no  other  sound  but  the  slight  rattle  of  the  coins  to 
attract  attention.  It  was  long  after  the  sea-chapter  of 
my  life  had  been  closed  but  it  is  difficult  to  discard  com- 
pletely the  characteristics  of  half  a  life-time,  and  it  was  in 
something  of  the  jack-ashore  spirit  that  I  dropped  a  five- 
franc  piece  into  the  sauceboat;  whereupon  the  sleep- 
walker turned  her  head  to  gaze  at  me  and  said  "Merci, 
Monsieur,"  in  a  tone  in  which  there  was  no  gratitude  but 
dnly  surprise.  I  must  have  been  idle  indeed  to  take  the 
trouble  to  remark  on  such  slight  evidence  that  the  voice 
was  very  charming  and  when  the  performers  resumed 
their  seats  I  shifted  my  position  slightly  in  order  not  to 
have  that  particular  performer  hidden  from  me  by  the 
little  man  with  the  beard  who  conducted,  and  who  might 
for  all  I  know  have  been  her  father,  but  whose  real 
itiission  in  life  was  to  be  a  model  for  the  Zangiacomo  of 
"Victory."  Having  got  a  clear  line  of  sight  I  naturally 
(being  idle)  continued  to  look  at  the  girl  through  all  the 
second  part  of  the  programme.  The  shape  of  her  dark 
head  inclined  over  the  violin  was  fascinating,  and,  while 
resting  between  the  pieces  of  that  interminable  programme 
she  was,  in  her  white  dress  and  with  her  brown  hands 
reposing  in  her  lap,  the  very  image  of  dreamy  inno- 
cence. The  mature,  bad-tempered  woman  at  the  piano 
might  have  been  her  mother,  though  there  was  not  the 
slightest  resemblance  between  them.  All  I  am  certain  of 
in  their  personal  relation  to  each  other  is  that  cruel  pinch 
on  the  upper  part  of  the  arm.  That  I  am  sure  I  have  seen ! 
There  could  be  no  mistake.  I  was  in  a  too  idle  mood  to 
imagine  such  a  gratuitous  barbarity.  It  may  have  been 
playfulness,  yet  the  girl  jumped  up  as  if  she  had  been 
stung  by  a  wasp.  It  may  have  been  playfulness.  Yet  I  saw 
plainly  poor  "dreamy  innocence"  rub  gently  the  affected 
place  as  she  filed  off  with  the  other  performers  down 
the  middle  aisle  between  the  marble  tables  in  the  uproar 


AUTHOR'S  NOTE  xv  i 

of  voices,  the  rattling  of  dominoes,  through  a  blue  atmos- 
phere of  tobacco  smoke.  I  believe  that  those  people  left 
the  town  next  day. 

Or  perhaps  they  had  only  migrated  to  the  other  big 
cafe,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Place  de  la  Comedie.  It  is 
very  possible.  I  did  not  go  across  to  find  out.  It  was  my 
perfect  idleness  that  had  invested  the  girl  with  a  peculiar 
charm,  and  I  did  not  want  to  destroy  it  by  any  superflu- 
ous exertion.  The  receptivity  of  my  indolence  made  the 
impression  so  permanent  that  when  the  moment  came 
for  her  meeting  with  Heyst  I  felt  that  she  would  be 
heroically  equal  to  every  demand  of  the  risky  and  un- 
certain future.  I  was  so  convinced  of  it  that  I  let  her  go 
with  Heyst,  I  won't  say  without  a  pang  but  certainly 
without  misgivings.  And  in  view  of  her  triumphant  end 
what  more  could  I  have  done  for  her  rehabilitation  and 
her  happiness? 

1920.  J.  C. 


PART    I 


There  is,  as  every  schoolboy  knows  in  this  scientific 
age,  a  very  close  chemical  relation  between  coal  and 
diamonds.  It  is  the  reason,  I  believe,  why  some  people 
allude  to  coal  as  "black  diamonds."  Both  these  com- 
modities represent  wealth;  but  coal  is  a  much  less  port- 
able form  of  property.  There  is,  from  that  point  of  view, 
a  deplorable  lack  of  concentration  in  coal.  Now,  if  a  coal- 
mine could  be  put  into  one's  waistcoat  pocket — but  it 
can't!  At  the  same  time,  there  is  a  fascination  in  coal, 
the  supreme  commodity  of  the  age  in  which  we  are 
camped  like  bewildered  travellers  in  a  garish,  unrestful 
hotel.  And  I  suppose  those  two  considerations,  the  practi- 
cal and  the  mystical,  prevented  Heyst — Axel  Heyst — 
from  going  away. 

The  Tropical  Belt  Coal  Company  went  into  liquidation. 
The  world  of  finance  is  a  mysterious  world  in  which,  in- 
credible as  the  fact  may  appear,  evaporation  precedes 
liquidation.  First  the  capital  evaporates,  and  then  the 
company  goes  into  liquidation.  These  are  very  unnatural 
physics,  but  they  account  for  the  persistent  inertia  of 
Heyst,  at  which  we  "out  there"  used  to  laugh  among  our- 
selves— but  not  inimically.  An  inert  body  can  do  no  harm 
to  any  one,  provokes  no  hostility,  is  scarcely  worth  de- 
rision. It  may,  indeed,  be  in  the  way  sometimes ;  but  this 
could  not  be  said  of  Axel  Heyst.  He  was  out  of  every- 
body's way,  as  if  he  were  perched  on  the  highest  peak  of 
the  Himalayas,  and  in  a  sense  as  conspicuous.  Every  one 
in  that  part  of  the  world  knew  him,  dwelling  on  his  little 
island.  An  island  is  but  the  top  of  a  mountain.   Axel 

3 


4  VICTORY 

Heyst,  perched  on  it  immovably,  was  surrounded,  instead 
of  the  imponderable  stormy  and  transparent  ocean  of  air 
merging  into  infinity,  by  a  tepid,  shallow  sea;  a  passion- 
less ofiF-shoot  of  the  great  waters  which  embrace  the 
continents  of  this  globe.  His  most  frequent  visitors  were 
shadows,  the  shadows  of  clouds,  relieving  the  monotony 
of  the  inanimate,  brooding  sunshine  of  the  tropics.  His 
nearest  neighbour — I  am  speaking  now  of  things  showing 
some  sort  of  animation — was  an  indolent  volcano  which 
smoked  faintly  all  day  with  its  head  just  above  the  north- 
ern horizon,  and  at  night  levelled  at  him,  from  amongst 
the  clear  stars,  a  dull  red  glow,  expanding  and  collapsing 
spasmodically  like  the  end  of  a  gigantic  cigar  puffed  at 
intermittently  in  the  dark.  Axel  Heyst  was  also  a  smoker ; 
and  when  he  lounged  out  on  his  verandah  with  his  che- 
root, the  last  thing  before  going  to  bed,  he  made  in  the 
night  the  same  sort  of  glow  and  of  the  same  size  as  that 
other  one  so  many  miles  away. 

In  a  sense,  the  volcano  was  company  to  him  in  the 
shades  of  the  night — which  were  often  too  thick,  one 
would  think,  to  let  a  breath  of  air  through.  There  was 
seldom  enough  wind  to  blow  a  feather  along.  On  most 
evenings  of  the  year  Heyst  could  have  sat  outside  with  a 
naked  candle  to  read  one  of  the  books  left  him  by  his 
late  father.  It  was  not  a  mean  store.  But  he  never  did  that. 
Afraid  of  mosquitoes,  very  likely.  Neither  was  he  ever 
tempted  by  the  silence  to  address  any  casual  remarks  to 
the  companion  glow  of  the  volcano.  He  was  not  mad. 
Queer  chap — yes,  that  may  have  been  said,  and  in  fact 
was  said;  but  there  is  a  tremendous  difference  between 
the  two,  you  will  allow. 

On  the  nights  of  full  moon  the  silence  around  Sam- 
buran — ^the  ''Round  Island"  of  the  charts — was  dazzling; 
and  in  the  flood  of  cold  light  Heyst  could  see  his  imme- 
diate surroundings,  which  had  the  aspect  of  an  abandoned 
settlement  invaded  by  the  jungle :  vague  roofs  above  low 


VICTORY  5 

vegetation,  broken  shadows  of  bamboo  fences  in  the  sheen 
of  long  grass,  something  like  an  overgrown  bit  of  road 
slanting  among  ragged  thickets  towards  the  shore  only 
a  couple  of  hundred  yards  away,  with  a  black  jetty  and 
a  mound  of  some  sort,  quite  inky  on  its  unlighted  side. 
But  the  most  conspicuous  object  was  a  gigantic  black- 
board raised  on  two  posts  and  presenting  to  Heyst,  when 
the  moon  got  over  that  side,  the  white  letters  *T.  B.  C. 
Co."  in  a  row  at  least  two  feet  high.  These  were  the 
initials  of  the  Tropical  Belt  Coal  Company,  his  employers 
— ^his  late  employers,  to  be  precise. 

According  to  the  unnatural  mysteries  of  the  financial 
world,  the  T.  B.  C.  Company's  capital  having  evapo- 
rated in  the  course  of  two  years,  the  company  went  into 
liquidation — forced,  I  believe,  not  voluntary.  There  was 
nothing  forcible  in  the  process,  however.  It  was  slow; 
and  while  the  liquidation — in  London  and  Amsterdam — 
pursued  its  languid  course.  Axel  Heyst,  styled  in  the 
prospectus  "manager  in  the  tropics,"  remained  at  his  post 
on  Samburan,  the  No.  i  coaling-station  of  the  company. 

And  it  was  not  merely  a  coaling-station.  There  was  a 
coal-mine  there,  with  an  outcrop  in  the  hillside  less  than 
five  hundred  yards  from  the  rickety  wharf  and  the  impos- 
ing blackboard.  The  company's  object  had  been  to  get 
hold  of  all  the  outcrops  on  tropical  islands  and  exploit 
them  locally.  And,  Lord  knows,  there  were  any  amount 
of  outcrops.  It  was  Heyst  who  had  located  most  of  them 
in  this  part  of  the  tropical  belt  during  his  rather  aimless 
wanderings,  and  being  a  ready  letter- writer  had  written 
pages  and  pages  about  them  to  his  friends  in  Europe.  At 
least,  so  it  was  said. 

We  doubted  whether  he  had  any  visions  of  wealth — 
for  himself,  at  any  rate.  What  he  seemed  mostly  con- 
cerned for  was  the  "stride  forward,"  as  he  expressed  it, 
in  the  general  organisation  of  the  universe,  apparently. 
He  was  heard  by  more  than  a  hundred  persons  in  the 


6  VICTORY 

islands  talking  of  a  "great  stride  forward  for  these 
regions."  The  convinced  wave  of  the  hand  which  ac- 
companied the  phrase  suggested  tropical  distances  being 
impelled  onward.  In  connection  with  the  finished  courtesy 
of  his  manner,  it  was  persuasive,  or  at  any  rate  silencing 
— for  a  time,  at  least.  Nobody  cared  to  argue  with  him 
when  he  talked  in  this  strain.  His  earnestness  could  do 
no  harm  to  anybody.  There  was  no  danger  of  any  one 
taking  seriously  his  dream  of  tropical  coal,  so  what  was 
the  use  of  hurting  his  feelings? 

Thus  reasoned  men  in  reputable  business  offices  where 
he  had  his  entree  as  a  person  who  came  out  East  with 
letters  of  introduction — and  modest  letters  of  credit,  too 
— some  years  before  these  coal-outcrops  began  to  crop 
up  in  his  playfully  courteous  talk.  From  the  first  there 
was  some  difficulty  in  making  him  out.  He  was  not  a 
traveller.  A  traveller  arrives  and  departs,  goes  on  some- 
where. Heyst  did  not  depart.  I  met  a  man  once — ^the 
manager  of  the  branch  of  the  Oriental  Banking  Corpora- 
tion in  Malacca — to  whom  Heyst  exclaimed,  in  no  con- 
nection with  anything  in  particular  (it  was  in  the  billiard- 
room  of  the  club)  : 

"I  am  enchanted  with  these  islands !" 

He  shot  it  out  suddenly,  a  propos  des  hottcs,  as  the 
French  say,  and  while  chalking  his  cue.  And  perhaps  it 
was  some  sort  of  enchantment.  There  are  more  spells 
than  your  commonplace  magicians  ever  dreamed  of. 

Roughly  speaking,  a  circle  with  a  radius  of  eight  hun- 
dred miles  drawn  round  a  point  in  North  Borneo  was 
in  Heyst's  case  a  magic  circle.  It  just  touched  .Manila, 
and  he  had  been  seen  there.  It  just  touched  Saigon,  and 
he  was  likewise  seen  there  once.  Perhaps  these  were  his 
attempts  to  break  out.  If  so,  they  were  failures.  The  en- 
chantment must  have  been  an  unbreakable  one.  The  man- 
ager— the  man  who  heard  the  exclamation — had  been  so 
impressed  by  the  tone,  fervour,  rapture,  what  you  will, 


VICTORY  7 

or  perhaps  by  the  incongruity  of  it  that  he  had  related  the 
experience  to  more  than  one  person. 

''Queer  chap,  that  Swede,"  was  his  only  comment;  but 
this  is  the  origin  of  the  name  "Enchanted  Heyst"  which 
some  fellows  fastened  on  our  man. 

He  also  had  other  names.  In  his  early  years,  long  be- 
fore he  got  so  becomingly  bald  on  the  top,  he  went  to 
present  a  letter  of  introduction  to  Mr.  Tesman  of  Tesman 
Brothers,  a  Sourabaya  firm — ^tip-top  house.  Well,  Mr. 
Tesman  was  a  kindly,  benevolent  old  gentleman.  He  did 
not  know  what  to  make  of  that  caller.  After  telling  him 
that  they  wished  to  render  his  stay  among  the  islands  as 
pleasant  as  possible,  and  that  they  were  ready  to  assist  him 
in  his  plans,  and  so  on,  and  after  receiving  Heyst's  thanks 
- — ^you  know  the  usual  kind  of  conversation — he  proceeded 
to  query  in  a  slow,  paternal  tone: 

"Are  you  interested  in ?" 

"Facts,"  broke  in  Heyst  in  his  courtly  voice.  "There's 
nothing  worth  knowing  but  facts.  Hard  facts!  Facts 
alone,  Mr.  Tesman." 

I  don't  know  if  old  Tesman  agreed  with  him  or  not, 
but  he  must  have  spoken  about  it,  because,  for  a  time, 
our  man  got  the  name  of  "Hard  Facts."  He  had  the 
singular  good  fortune  that  his  sayings  stuck  to  him  and 
became  part  of  his  name.  Thereafter  he  mooned  about 
the  Java  Sea  in  some  of  the  Tesman's  trading  schooners, 
and  then  vanished,  on  board  an  Arab  ship,  in  the  direction 
of  New  Guinea.  He  remained  so  long  in  that  outlying 
part  of  his  enchanted  circle  that  he  was  nearly  forgotten 
before  he  swam  into  view  again  in  a  native  proa  full  of 
Goram  vagabonds,  burnt  black  by  the  sun,  very  lean,  his 
hair  much  thinned,  and  a  portfolio  of  sketches  under  his 
arm.  He  showed  these  willingly,  but  was  very  reserved  as 
to  anything  else.  He  had  had  an  "amusing  time,"  he  said. 
A  man  who  will  go  to  New  Guinea  for  fun — well! 

Later,  years  afterward,  when  the  last  vestiges  of  youth 


8  VICTORY 

had  gone  off  his  face  and  all  the  hair  off  the  top  of  his 
head,  and  his  red-gold  pair  of  horizontal  moustaches  had 
grown  to  really  noble  proportions,  a  certain  disreputable 
white  man  fastened  upon  him  an  epithet.  Putting  down 
with  a  shaking  hand  a  long  glass  emptied  of  its  contents 
— ^paid  for  by  Heyst — he  said,  with  that  deliberate  saga- 
city which  no  mere  water-drinker  ever  attained : 

"Heyst's  a  puffect  g'n'lman.  Puffect !  But  he's  a  ut-uto- 
utopist.'' 

Heyst  had  just  come  out  of  the  place  of  public  refresh-, 
ment  where  this  pronouncement  was  voiced.  Utopist,  eh? 
Upon  my  word,  the  only  thing  I  heard  him  say  which 
might  have  had  a  bearing  on  the  point  was  his  invitation 
to  old  McXab  himself.  Turning  with  that  finished  courtesy 
of  attitude,  movement,  voice,  which  was  his  obvious  char- 
acteristic, he  had  said  with  delicate  playfulness: 

"Come  along  and  quench  your  thirst  with  us,  Mr. 
McNab !" 

Perhaps  that  was  it.  A  man  who  could  propose,  even 
playfully,  to  quench  old  McNab's  thirst  must  have  been 
an  utopist,  a  pursuer  of  chimaeras ;  for  of  downright 
irony  Heyst  was  not  prodigal.  And,  may  be,  this  was  the 
reason  why  he  was  generally  liked.  At  that  epoch  in  his 
life,  in  the  fulness  of  his  physical  development,  of  a 
broad,  martial  presence,  w^ith  his  bald  head  and  long 
moustaches,  he  resembled  the  portraits  of  Charles  XH 
of  adventurous  memory.  However,  there  w^as  no  reason 
to  think  that  Heyst  was  in  any  way  a  fighting  man. 


II 

It  was  about  this  time  that  Heyst  became  associated 
with  Morrison  on  terms  about  which  people  were  in  doubt. 
Some  said  he  was  a  partner,  others  said  he  was  a  sort  of 
paying  guest,  but  the  real  truth  of  the  matter  was  more 
complex.  One  day  Heyst  turned  up  in  Timor.  Why  in 
Timor,  of  all  places  in  the  world,  no  one  knows.  Well, 
he  was  mooning  about  Delli,  that  highly  pestilential  place, 
possibly  in  search  of  some  undiscovered  facts,  when  he 
came  in  the  street  upon  Morrison,  who,  in  his  way,  was 
also  an  "enchanted"  man.  When  you  spoke  to  Morrison 
of  going  home — he  was  from  Dorsetshire — he  shuddered. 
He  said  it  was  dark  and  wet  there ;  that  it  was  like  living 
with  your  head  and  shoulders  in  a  moist  gunny-bag.  That 
was  only  his  exaggerated  style  of  talking.  Morrison  was 
"one  of  us."  He  was  owner  and  master  of  the  Capricorn, 
trading  brig,  and  was  understood  to  be  doing  well  with 
her,  except  for  the  drawback  of  too  much  altruism.  He 
was  the  dearly  beloved  friend  of  a  quantity  of  God- 
forsaken villages  up  dark  creeks  and  obscure  bays,  where 
he  traded  for  "produce."  He  would  often  sail  through 
awfully  dangerous  channels  up  to  some  miserable  settle- 
ment, only  to  find  a  very  hungry  population  clamorous 
for  rice,  and  without  so  much  "produce"  between  them 
as  would  have  filled  Morrison's  suit-case.  Amid  general 
rejoicings,  he  would  land  the  rice  all  the  same,  explain 
to  the  people  that  it  was  an  advance,  that  they  were  in 
debt  to  him  now;  would  preach  to  them  energy  and  in- 
dustry, and  make  an  elaborate  note  in  a  pocket-diary 
which  he  always  carried;  and  this  would  be  the  end  of 

9 


lo  VICTORY 

that  transaction.  I  don't  know  if  Morrison  thought  so, 
but  the  villagers  had  no  doubt  whatever  about  it.  When- 
ever a  coast  village  sighted  the  brig  it  would  begin  to  beat 
all  its  gongs  and  hoist  all  its  streamers,  and  all  its  girls 
would  put  flowers  in  their  hair  and  the  crowd  would  line 
the  river  bank,  and  Morrison  would  beam  and  glitter  at 
all  this  excitement  through  his  single  eyeglass  with  an  air 
of  intense  gratification.  He  was  tall  and  lantern- jawed, 
and  clean-shaven,  and  looked  like  a  barrister  who  had 
thrown  his  wig  to  the  dogs. 

We  used  to  remonstrate  with  him: 

**You  will  never  see  any  of  your  advances  if  you  go 
on  like  this,  Morrison." 

He  would  put  on  a  knowing  air. 

"I  shall  squeeze  them  yet  some  day — never  you  fear. 
And  that  reminds  me" — pulling  out  his  inseparable 
pocketbook — "there's  that  So-and-So  village.  They  are 
pretty  well  off  again;  I  may  just  as  well  squeeze  them 
to  begin  with." 

He  would  make  a  ferocious  entry  in  the  pocketbook: 

Memo: — Squeeze  the  So-and-So  village  at  the  first  time 
of  calling. 

Then  he  would  stick  the  pencil  back  and  snap  the 
elastic  on  with  inflexible  finality;  but  he  never  began  the 
squeezing.  Some  men  grumbled  at  him.  He  was  spoiling 
the  trade.  Well,  perhaps  to  a  certain  extent ;  not  much. 
Most  of  the  places  he  traded  with  were  unknown  not  only 
to  geography  but  also  to  the  traders'  special  lore  which 
is  transmitted  by  word  of  mouth,  without  ostentation, 
and  forms  the  stock  of  mysterious  local  knowledge.  It  was 
hinted  also  that  Morrison  had  a  wife  in  each  and  every 
one  of  them,  but  the  majority  of  us  repulsed  these  innu- 
endoes with  indignation.  He  was  a  true  humanitarian 
and  rather  ascetic  than  otherwise. 

When  Heyst  met  him  in  Belli,  Morrison  was  walking 
along  the  street,  his  eyeglass  tossed  over  his  shoulder, 


VICTORY  II 

his  head  down,  with  the  hopeless  aspect  of  those  hard- 
ened tramps  one  sees  on  our  roads  trudging  from  work- 
house to  workhouse.  Being  hailed  across  the  street  he 
looked  up  with  a  wild  worried  expression.  He  was  really 
in  trouble.  He  had  come  the  week  before  into  Delli,  and 
the  Portuguese  authorities,  on  some  pretence  of  irregu- 
larity in  his  papers,  had  inflicted  a  fine  upon  him  and  had 
arrested  his  brig. 

Morrison  never  had  any  spare  cash  in  hand.  With  his 
system  of  trading  it  would  have  been  strange  if  he  had; 
and  all  these  debts  entered  in  the  pocketbook  weren't  good 
enough  to  raise  a  ndlrei  on — let  alone  a  shilling.  The 
Portuguese  officials  begged  him  not  to  distress  himself. 
They  gave  him  a  week's  grace,  and  then  proposed  to  sell 
the  brig  at  auction.  This  meant  ruin  for  Morrison;  and 
when  Heyst  hailed  him  across  the  street  in  his  usual 
courtly  tone,  the  week  was  nearly  out. 

Heyst  crossed  over,  and  said  with  a  slight  bow,  and  in 
the  manner  of  a  prince  addressing  another  prince  on  a 
private  occasion: 

"What  an  unexpected  pleasure.  Would  you  have  any 
objection  to  drink  something  with  me  in  that  infamous 
wine-shop  over  there  ?  The  sun  is  really  too  strong  to  talk 
in  the  street." 

The  haggard  Morrison  followed  obediently  into  a 
sombre,  cool  hovel  which  he  would  have  disdained  to 
enter  at  any  other  time.  He  was  distracted.  He  did  not 
know  what  he  was  doing.  You  could  have  led  him  over 
the  edge  of  a  precipice  just  as  easily  as  into  that  wine- 
shop. He  sat  down  like  an  automaton.  He  was  speechless, 
but  he  saw  a  glass  full  of  rough  red  wine  before  him, 
and  emptied  it.  Heyst  meantime,  politely  watchful,  had 
taken  a  seat  opposite. 

"You  are  in  for  a  bout  of  fever,  I  fear,"  he  said  sym- 
pathetically. 

Poor  Morrison's  tongue  was  loosened  at  last. 


12  VICTORY 

"Fever!''  he  cried.  ''Give  me  fever.  Give  me  plague. 
They  are  diseases.  One  gets  over  them.  But  I  am  being 
murdered.  I  am  being  murdered  by  the  Portuguese.  The 
gang  here  downed  me  at  last  among  them.  I  am  to  have 
my  throat  cut  the  day  after  to-morrow." 

In  the  face  of  this  passion  Heyst  made,  with  his  eye- 
brows, a  slight  motion  of  surprise  which  would  not  have 
been  misplaced  in  a  drawing-room.  Morrison's  despairing 
reserve  had  broken  down.  He  had  been  wandering  w4th 
a  dr}^  throat  all  over  that  miserable  town  of  mud  hovels, 
silent,  with  no  soul  to  turn  to  in  his  distress,  and  positively 
maddened  by  his  thoughts ;  and  suddenly  he  had  stumbled 
on  a  white  man,  figuratively  and  actually  white — for  Mor- 
rison refused  to  accept  the  racial  whiteness  of  the  Portu- 
guese officials.  He  let  himself  go  for  the  mere  relief  of 
violent  speech,  his  elbows  planted  on  the  table,  his  eyes 
bloodshot,  his  voice  nearly  gone,  the  brim  of  his  round 
pith  hat  shading  an  unshaven,  livid  face.  His  white 
clothes,  which  he  had  not  taken  oft  for  three  days,  were 
dingy.  He  looked  already  gone  to  the  bad,  past  redemp- 
tion. The  sight  was  shocking  to  Heyst ;  but  he  let  nothing 
of  it  appear  in  his  bearing,  concealing  his  impression 
under  that  consummate  good-society  manner  of  his.  Polite 
attention,  what's  due  from  one  gentleman  listening  to 
another,  was  what  he  showed ;  and.  as  usual,  it  was  catch- 
ing ;  so  that  Morrison  pulled  himself  together  and  finished 
his  narrative  in  a  conversational  tone,  with  a  man-of-the- 
world  air. 

"It's  a  villainous  plot.  Unluckily,  one  is  helpless.  That 
scoundrel  Cousinho — Andreas,  you  know — has  been  cov- 
eting the  brig  for  years.  Naturally,  I  would  never  sell.  She 
is  not  only  my  livelihood ;  she's  my  life.  So  he  has  hatched 
this  pretty  little  plot  with  the  chief  of  the  customs.  The 
sale,  of  course,  will  be  a  farce.  There's  no  one  here  to  bid. 
He  will  get  the  brig  for  a  song — ^no,  not  even  that — a  line 
of  a  song.  You  have  been  some  years  now  in  the  islands. 


VICTORY  13 

Heyst.  You  know  us  all ;  you  have  seen  how  we  live.  Now 
you  shall  have  the  opportunity  to  see  how  some  of  us 
end ;  for  it  is  the  end,  for  me.  I  can't  deceive  myself  any 
longer.  You  see  it, — don't  you?" 

Morrison  had  pulled  himself  together,  but  one  felt 
the  snapping  strain  on  his  recovered  self-possession. 
Heyst  was  beginning  to  say  that  he  "could  very  well  see 

all  the  bearings  of  this  unfortunate "  when  Morrison 

interrupted  him  jerkily. 

"Upon  my  word,  I  don't  know  why  I  have  been  telling 
you  all  this.  I  suppose  seeing  a  thoroughly  white  man 
made  it  impossible  to  keep  my  trouble  to  myself.  Words 
can't  do  it  justice ;  but  since  I've  told  you  so  much  I  may 
as  well  tell  you  more.  Listen.  This  morning  on  board,  in 
my  cabin  I  went  down  on  my  knees  and  prayed  for  help. 
I  went  down  on  my  knees !" 

"You  are  a  believer,  Morrison?"  asked  Heyst  with  a 
distinct  note  of  respect. 

"Surely  I  am  not  an  infidel." 

Morrison  was  swiftly  reproachful  in  his  answer,  and 
there  came  a  pause,  Morrison  perhaps  interrogating  his 
conscience,  and  Heyst  preserving  a  mien  of  unperturbed, 
polite  interest. 

"I  prayed  like  a  child,  of  course.  I  believe  in  children 
praying — well,  women,  too,  but  I  rather  think  God  ex- 
pects men  to  be  more  self-reliant.  I  don't  hold  with  a  man 
everlastingly  bothering  the  Almighty  with  his  silly 
troubles.  It  seems  such  cheek.  Anyhow,  this  morning  I — 
I  have  never  done  any  harm  to  any  God's  creature  know- 
ingly— I  prayed.  A  sudden  impulse — I  went  flop  on  my 
knees ;  so  you  may  judge " 

They  were  gazing  earnestly  into  each  other's  eyes.  Poor 
Morrison  added,   as   a   discouraging  afterthought: 

"Only  this  is  such  a  God-forsaken  spot." 

Heyst  inquired  with  a  delicate  intonation  whether  he 
might  know  the  amount  for  which  the  brig  was  seized. 


14  VICTORY 

Morrison  suppressed  an  oath,  and  named  curtly  a  sum 
which  was  in  itself  so  insignificant  that  any  other  person 
than  Heyst  would  have  exclaimed  at  it.  And  even  Heyst 
could  hardly  keep  incredulity  out  of  his  politely  modu- 
lated voice  as  he  asked  if  it  was  a  fact  that  Morrison  had 
not  that  amount  in  hand. 

Morrison  hadn't.  He  had  only  a  little  English  gold,  a 
few  sovereigns,  on  board.  He  had  left  all  his  spare  cash 
with  the  Tesmans,  in  Samarang,  to  meet  certain  bills 
which  would  fall  due  while  he  was  away  on  his  cruise. 
Anyhow  that  money  would  not  have  been  any  more  good 
to  him  than  if  it  had  been  in  the  innermost  depths  of  the 
infernal  regions.  He  said  all  this  brusquely.  He  looked 
with  sudden  disfavour  at  that  noble  forehead,  at  those 
great  martial  moustaches,  at  the  tired  eyes  of  the  man 
sitting  opposite  him.  Who  the  devil  was  he  ?  What  was  he, 
Morrison,  doing  there,  talking  like  this?  Morrison  knew 
no  more  of  Heyst  than  the  rest  of  us  trading  in  the  Archi- 
pelago did.  Had  the  Swede  suddenly  risen  and  hit  him  on 
the  nose,  he  could  not  have  been  taken  more  aback  than 
when  this  stranger,  this  nondescript  wanderer,  said  with  a 
little  bow  across  the  table : 

"Oh !  If  that's  the  case  I  would  be  very  happy  if  you'd 
allow  me  to  be  of  use !" 

Morrison  didn't  understand.  This  was  one  of  those 
things  that  don't  happen — unheard  of  things.  He  had  no 
real  inkling  of  what  it  meant,  till  Heyst  said  definitely: 

"I  can  lend  you  the  amount." 

"You  have  the  money?"  whispered  Morrison.  "Do  you 
mean  here,  in  your  pocket?" 

"Yes,  on  me.  Glad  to  be  of  use." 

Morrison,  staring  open-mouthed,  groped  over  his  shoul- 
der for  the  cord  of  the  eyeglass  hanging  down  his  back. 
When  he  found  it,  he  stuck  it  in  his  eye  hastily.  It  was 
as  if  he  expected  Heyst's  usual  white  suit  of  the  tropics 
to  change  into  a  shining  garment  flowing  dow^n  to  his  toes^ 


VICTORY  15 

and  a  pair  of  great  dazzling  wings  to  sprout  on  tTie 
Swede's  shoulders — and  didn't  want  to  miss  a  single  detail 
of  the  transformation.  But  if  Heyst  was  an  angel  from 
on  high,  sent  in  answer  to  prayer,  he  did  not  betray  his 
heavenly  origin  by  outward  signs.  So,  instead  of  going 
on  his  knees,  as  he  felt  inclined  to  do,  Morrison  stretched 
out  his  hand,  which  Heyst  grasped  with  formal  alacrity 
and  a  polite  murmur  in  which  "Trifle — delighted — of 
service,"  could  be  just  distinguished. 

"Miracles  do  happen,"  thought  the  awestruck  Morri- 
son. To  him,  as  to  all  of  us  in  the  islands,  this  wandering 
Heyst,  who  didn't  toil  or  spin  visibly,  seemed  the  very 
last  person  to  be  the  agent  of  Providence  in  an  affair 
concerned  with  money.  The  fact  of  his  turning  up  in 
Timor  or  anywhere  else  was  no  more  wonderful  than 
the  settling  of  a  sparrow  on  one's  window-sill  at  any 
given  moment.  But  that  he  should  carry  a  sum  of  money 
in  his  pocket  seemed  somehow  inconceivable. 

So  inconceivable  that  as  they  were  trudging  together 
through  the  sand  of  the  roadway  to  the  custom-house — 
another  mud  hovel — ^to  pay  the  fine,  Morrison  broke  into 
a  cold  sweat,  stopped  short,  and  exclaimed  in  faltering 
accents  : 

"I  say!  You  aren't  joking,  Heyst?" 

"Joking!"  Heyst's  blue  eyes  went  hard  as  he  turned 
them  on  the  discomposed  Morrison.  "In  what  way,  may 
I  ask?"  he  continued  with  austere  politeness. 

Morrison  was  abashed. 

"Forgive  me,  Heyst.  You  must  have  been  sent  by  God 
in  answer  to  my  prayer.  But  I  have  been  nearly  off  my 
chump  for  three  days  with  worry ;  and  it  suddenly  struck 
me:  'What  if  it's  the  Devil  who  has  sent  him?'  " 

"I  have  no  connection  with  the  supernatural,"  said 
Heyst  graciously,  moving  on.  "Nobody  has  sent  me.  I 
just  happened  along." 

"I  know  better,"  contradicted  Morrison.  "I  may  be  un- 


i6  VICTORY 

worthy,  but  I  have  been  heard.  I  know  it.  I  feel  it.  For 
why  should  you  offer " 

Heyst  inclined  his  head,  as  from  respect  for  a  convic- 
tion in  which  he  could  not  share.  But  he  stuck  to  his 
point  by  muttering  that  in  the  presence  of  an  odious  fact 
like  this,  it  was  natural 

Later  in  the  day,  the  fine  paid,  and  the  two  of  them  on 
board  the  brig,  from  which  the  guard  had  been  removed, 
Morrison — who,  besides  being  a  gentleman,  was  also  an 
honest  fellow — began  to  talk  about  repayment.  He  knew 
very  well  his  inability  to  lay  by  any  sum  of  money.  It 
was  partly  the  fault  of  circumstances  and  partly  of  his 
temperament;  and  it  would  have  been  very  difficult  to 
apportion  the  responsibility  between  the  two.  Even  Mor- 
rison himself  could  not  say,  while  confessing  to  the  fact. 
With  a  worried  air  he  ascribed  it  to  fatality. 

"I  don't  know  how  it  is  that  Tve  never  been  able  to 
save.  It's  some  sort  of  curse.  There's  always  a  bill  or 
two  to  meet." 

He  plunged  his  hand  into  his  pocket  for  the  famous 
notebook  so  well  known  in  the  islands,  the  fetish  of  his 
hopes,  and  fluttered  the  pages  feverishly. 

"And  yet — look,"  he  went  on.  "There  it  is — ^more  than 
five  thousand  dollars  owing.  Surely  that's  something." 

He  ceased  suddenly.  Heyst,  who  had  been  all  the  time 
trying  to  look  as  unconcerned  as  he  could,  made  reassur- 
ing noises  in  his  throat.  But  Morrison  was  not  only  hon- 
est. He  was  honourable,  too;  and  on  this  stressful  day, 
before  this  amazing  emissary  of  Providence  and  in  the 
revulsion  of  his  feelings,  he  made  his  great  renunciation. 
He  cast  off  the  abiding  illusion  of  his  existence. 

"No.  No.  They  are  no  good.  I'll  never  be  able  to  squeeze 
them.  Never.  I've  been  saying  for  years  I  would;  but  I 
give  it  up.  I  never  really  believed  I  could.  Don't  reckon 
on  that,  Heyst.  I  have  robbed  you." 

Poor  Morrison  actually  laid  his  head  on  the  cabin  table. 


VICTORY  17 

and  remained  in  that  crushed  attitude  while  Heyst  talked 
to  him  soothingly  with  the  utmost  courtesy.  The  Swede 
was  as  much  distressed  as  Morrison;  for  he  understood 
the  other's  feelings  perfectly.  No  decent  feeling  was  ever 
scorned  by  Heyst.  But  he  was  incapable  of  outward  cor- 
diality of  manner,  and  he  felt  acutely  his  defect.  Con- 
summate politeness  is  not  the  right  tonic  for  an  emotional 
collapse.  They  must  have  had,  both  of  them,  a  fairly  pain- 
ful time  of  it  in  the  cabin  of  the  brig.  In  the  end  Morri- 
son, casting  desperately  for  an  idea  in  the  blackness  of 
his  despondency,  hit  upon  the  notion  of  inviting  Heyst 
to  travel  with  him  in  his  brig  and  have  a  share  in  his 
trading  ventures  up  to  the  amount  of  his  loan. 

It  is  characteristic  of  Heyst's  unattached,  floating 
existence  that  he  was  in  a  position  to  accept  this  proposal. 
There  is  no  reason  to  think  that  he  wanted  particularly 
just  then  to  go  poking  aboard  the  brig  into  all  the  holes 
and  corners  of  the  Archipelago  where  Morrison  picked 
up  most  of  his  trade.  Far  from  it ;  but  he  would  have  con- 
sented to  almost  any  arrangement  in  order  to  put  an  end 
to  the  harrowing  scene  in  the  cabin.  There  was  at  once  a 
great  transformation  act :  Morrison  raising  his  diminished 
head  and  sticking  the  glass  in  his  eye  to  look  affectionately 
at  Heyst,  a  bottle  being  uncorked,  and  so  on.  It  was 
agreed  that  nothing  should  be  said  to  any  one  of  this 
transaction.  Morrison,  you  understand,  was  not  proud  of 
the  episode,  and  he  was  afraid  of  being  unmercifully 
chaffed. 

"An  old  bird  like  me!  To  let  myself  be  trapped  by 
those  damned  Portuguese  rascals !  I  should  never  hear  the 
last  of  it.  We  must  keep  it  dark." 

From  quite  other  motives,  among  which  his  native  deli- 
cacy was  the  principal,  Heyst  was  even  more  anxious  to 
bind  himself  to  silence.  A  gentleman  would  naturally 
shrink  from  the  part  of  heavenly  messenger  that  Morri- 
son would  force  upon  him.  It  made  Heyst  uncomfortable, 


i8  VICTORY 

as  it  was.  And  perhaps  he  did  not  care  that  it  should  be 
known  that  he  had  some  means,  whatever  they  might 
have  been — sufficient,  at  any  rate,  to  enable  him  to  lend 
money  to  people.  These  two  had  a  duet  down  there,  like 
conspirators  in  a  comic  opera,  of  ''Sh — ssh,  shssh!  Se- 
crecy! Secrecy!"  It  must  have  been  funny,  because  they 
were  very  serious  about  it. 

And  for  a  time  the  conspiracy  was  successful  in  so  far 
that  we  all  concluded  that  Heyst  was  boarding  with  the 
good-natured — some  said :  sponging  on  the  imbecile — 
Morrison,  in  his  brig.  But  you  know  how  it  is  with  all 
such  mysteries.  There  is  always  a  leak  somewhere.  Mor- 
rison himself,  not  a  perfect  vessel  by  any  means,  was 
bursting  with  gratitude,  and  under  the  stress  he  must 
have  let  out  something  vague — enough  to  give  the  island 
gossip  a  chance.  And  you  know  how  kindly  the  world 
is  in  its  comments  on  what  it  does  not  understand.  A 
rumour  sprang  out  that  Heyst,  having  obtained  some 
mysterious  hold  on  Morrison,  had  fastened  himself  on 
him  and  was  sucking  him  dry.  Those  who  had  traced 
these  mutters  back  to  their  origin  were  very  careful  not 
to  believe  them.  The  originator,  it  seems,  was  a  certain 
Schomberg,  a  big,  manly,  bearded  creature  of  the  Teu- 
tonic persuasion,  with  an  ungovernable  tongue  which 
surely  must  have  worked  on  a  pivot.  Whether  he  was  a 
Lieutenant  of  the  Reserve,  as  he  declared,  I  don't  know. 
Out  there  he  was  by  profession  a  hotel-keeper,  first  in 
Bangkok,  then  somewhere  else,  and  ultimately  in  Soura- 
baya.  He  dragged  after  him  up  and  down  that  section  of 
the  tropical  belt  a  silent,  frightened  little  woman  with 
long  ringlets,  who  smiled  at  one  stupidly,  showing  a  blue 
tooth.  I  don't  know  why  so  many  of  us  patronized  his 
various  establishments.  He  was  a  noxious  ass,  and  he 
satisfied  his  lust  for  silly  gossip  at  the  cost  of  his  cus- 
tomers. It  was  he  who,  one  evening,  as  Morrison  and 
Heyst  went  past  the  hotel — ^they   were  not  his  regular 


VICTORY  19 

patrons — ^whispered  mysteriously  to  the  mixed  company 
assembled  on  the  verandah: 

"The  spider  and  the  fly  just  gone  by,  gentlemen." 
Then,  very  important  and  confidential,  his  thick  paw  at 
the  side  of  his  mouth:  *'We  are  among  ourselves;  well, 
gentlemen,  all  I  can  say  is,  don't  you  ever  get  mixed  up 
with  that  Swede.  Don't  you  ever  gtt  caught  in  his  web,'' 


Ill 

Human  nature  being  what  it  is,  having  a  silly  side  to  it 
as  well  as  a  mean  side,  there  were  not  a  few  who  pre- 
tended to  be  indignant  on  no  better  authority  than  a 
general  propensity  to  believe  every  evil  report ;  and  a 
good  many  others  who  found  it  simply  funny  to  call  Heyst 
the  Spider — behind  his  back,  of  course.  He  was  as  se- 
renely unconscious  of  this  as  of  his  several  other  nick- 
names. But  soon  people  found  other  things  to  say  of 
Heyst ;  not  long  afterward  he  came  ver\'  much  to  the  fore 
in  larger  affairs.  He  blossomed  out  into  something  defi- 
nite. He  filled  the  public  eye  as  the  manager  on  the  spot 
of  the  Tropical  Belt  Coal  Company  with  offices  in  London 
and  Amsterdam,  and  other  things  about  it  that  sounded 
and  looked  grandiose.  The  offices  in  the  two  capitals  may 
have  consisted — and  probably  did — of  one  room  in  each; 
but  at  that  distance,  out  East  there,  all  this  had  an  air. 
We  were  more  puzzled  than  dazzled,  it  is  true ;  but  even 
the  most  sober-minded  among  us  began  to  think  that  there 
was  something  in  it.  The  Tesmans  appointed  agents,  a 
contract  for  government  mail-boats  secured,  the  era  of 
steam  beginning  for  the  islands — a  great  stride  for- 
ward— H cyst's  stride ! 

And  all  this  sprang  from  the  meeting  of  the  cornered 
Morrison  and  of  the  wandering  Heyst,  which  may  or  may 
not  have  been  the  direct  outcome  of  a  prayer.  Morrison 
w^as  not  an  imbecile,  but  he  seemed  to  have  got  himself 
into  a  state  of  remarkable  haziness  as  to  his  exact  posi- 
tion towards  Heyst.  For,  if  Heyst  had  been  sent  with 
money  in  his  pocket  by  a  direct  decree  of  the  Almighty  in 

20 


VICTORY  21 

answer  to  Morrison's  prayer  then  there  was  no  reason 
for  special  gratitude,  since  obviously  he  could  not  help 
himself.  But  Morrison  believed  both  in  the  efficacy  of 
prayer  and  in  the  infinite  goodness  of  Heyst.  He  thanked 
God  with  awed  sincerity  for  His  mercy,  and  could  not 
thank  Heyst  enough  for  the  service  rendered  as  between 
man  and  man.  In  this  (highly  creditable)  tangle  of  strong 
feelings  Morrison's  gratitude  insisted  on  Heyst's  partner- 
ship in  the  great  discovery.  Ultimately  we  heard  that 
Morrison  had  gone  home  through  the  Suez  Canal  in  order 
to  push  the  magnificent  coal  idea  personally  in  London. 
He  parted  from  his  brig  and  disappeared  from  our  ken; 
but  we  heard  that  he  had  written  a  letter  or  letters  to 
Heyst,  saying  that  London  was  cold  and  gloomy;  that 
he  did  not  like  either  the  men  or  things,  that  he  was  "as 
lonely  as  a  crow  in  a  strange  country.'*  In  truth,  he  pined 
after  the  Capricorn — I  don't  mean  only  the  tropic ;  I  mean 
the  ship  too.  Finally  he  went  into  Dorsetshire  to  see  his 
people,  caught  a  bad  cold,  and  died  with  extraordinary 
precipitation  in  the  bosom  of  his  appalled  family.  Whether 
his  exertions  in  the  City  of  London  had  enfeebled  his 
vitality  I  don't  know ;  but  I  believe  it  was  this  visit  which 
put  life  into  the  coal  idea.  Be  it  as  it  may,  the  Tropical 
Belt  Coal  Company  was  born  very  shortly  after  Morri- 
son, the  victim  of  gratitude  and  his  native  climate,  had 
gone  to  join  his  forefathers  in  a  Dorsetshire  churchyard. 

Heyst  was  immensely  shocked.  He  got  the  news  in  the 
Moluccas  through  the  Tesmans,  and  then  disappeared  for 
a  time.  It  appears  that  he  stayed  with  a  Dutch  government 
doctor  in  Amboyna,  a  friend  of  his  who  looked  after  him 
for  a  bit  in  his  bungalow.  He  became  visible  again  rather 
suddenly,  his  eyes  sunk  in  his  head,  and  with  a  sort  of 
guarded  attitude,  as  if  afraid  someone  would  reproach 
him  with  the  death  of  Morrison. 

Naive  Heyst!  As  if  anybody  would.  .  .  .  Nobody 
amongst  us  had  any  interest  in  men  who  went  home.  They, 


22  VICTORY 

were  all  right;  they  did  not  count  any  more.  Going  to 
Europe  was  nearly  as  final  as  going  to  Heaven.  It  re- 
moved a  man  from  the  world  of  hazard  and  adventure. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  many  of  us  did  not  hear  of  this 
death  till  months  afterward — from  Schomberg,  who  dis- 
liked Hey  St  gratuitously  and  made  up  a  piece  of  sinister 
whispered  gossip: 

''That's  what  corhes  of  having  anything  to  do  with  that 
fellow.  He  squeezes  you  dry  like  a  lemon,  then  chucks 
you  out — sends  you  home  to  die.  Take  warning  by  Mor- 
rison." 

Of  course,  we  laughed  at  the  innkeeper's  suggestions 
of  black  myster}\  Several  of  us  heard  that  Heyst  was 
prepared  to  go  to  Europe  himself,  to  push  on  his  coal 
enterprise  personally ;  but  he  never  went.  It  wasn't  neces- 
sary-. The  company  was  formed  without  him,  and  his 
nomination  of  manager  in  the  tropics  came  out  to  him 
by  post. 

From  the  first  he  had  selected  Samburan,  or  Round 
Island,  for  the  central  station.  Some  copies  of  the  pros- 
pectus issued  in  Europe,  having  found  their  way  out  East, 
were  passed  from  hand  to  hand.  We  greatly  admired  the 
map  which  accompanied  them  for  the  edification  of  the 
shareholders.  On  it  Samburan  was  represented  as  the  cen- 
tral spot  of  the  Eastern  Hemisphere  with  its  name  en- 
graved in  enormous  capitals.  Hea\y  lines  radiated  from  it 
in  all  directions  through  the  tropics,  figuring  a  mysterious 
and  effective  star — lines  of  influence  or  lines  of  distance, 
or  something  of  that  sort.  Company  promoters  have  an 
imagination  of  their  own.  There's  no  more  romantic  tem- 
perament on  earth  than  the  temperament  of  a  company 
promoter.  Engineers  came  out,  coolies  were  imported, 
bungalow^s  w-ere  put  up  on  Samburan,  a  galler\'  driven 
into  the  hillside,  and  actually  some  coal  got  out. 

These  manifestations  shook  the  soberest  minds.  For  a 
time  ever}-body  in  the  islands  was  talking  of  the  Tropical 


VICTORY  23 

Belt  Coal,  and  even  those  who  smiled  quietly  to  them- 
selves were  only  hiding  their  uneasiness.  Oh,  yes ;  it  had 
come,  and  anybody  could  see  what  would  be  the  conse- 
quences— ^the  end  of  the  individual  trader,  smothered 
under  a  great  invasion  of  steamers.  We  could  not  afford 
to  buy  steamers.  Not  we.  And  Heyst  was  the  manager. 

"You  know,  Heyst,  enchanted  Heyst." 

"Oh,  come !  He  has  been  no  better  than  a  loafer  around 
here  as  far  back  as  any  of  us  can  remember.'' 

"Yes,  said  he  was  looking  for  facts.  Well,  he's  got 
hold  of  one  that  will  do  for  all  of  us,"  commented  a 
bitter  voice. 

"That's  what  they  call  development — and  be  hanged 
to  it !"  muttered  another. 

Never  was  Heyst  talked  about  so  much  in  the  tropical 
belt  before.  •  ' 

"Isn't  he  a  Swedish  baron  or  something?" 

"He,  a  baron?  Get  along  with  you!" 

For  my  part  I  haven't  tte'sMghtest  doubt  that  he  was. 
While  he  was  still  drifting  ^amongst  the  islands,  enigmati- 
cal and  disregarded  like  an  insignificant  ghost,  he  told 
tne  so  himself  on  a  certain  occasion.  It  was  a  long  time 
before  he  materialized  in  this  alarming  way  into  the  de- 
stroyer of  our  little  industry — Heyst  the  Enemy. 

It  became  the  fashion  with  a  good  many  to  speak  of 
Heyst  as  the  Enemy.  He  was  very  concrete,  very  visible 
now.  He  was  rushing  all  over  the  Archipelago,  jumping 
in  and  out  of  local  mail-packets  as  if  they  had  been  tram- 
cars,  here,  there,  and  everywhere — organizing  with  all  his 
might.  This  was  no  mooning  about.  This  was  business. 
And  this  sudden  display  of  purposeful  energy  shook  the 
incredulity  of  the  most  sceptical  more  than  any  scientific 
demonstration  of  the  value  of  these  coal-outcrops  could 
have  done.  It  was  impressive.  Schomberg  was  the  only 
one  who  resisted  the  infection.  Big,  manly  in  a  portly 
style,  and  profusely  bearded,  with  a  glass  of  beer  in  his 


24  VICTORY 

thick  paw,  he  would  approach  some  table  where  the  topic 
of  the  hour  was  being  discussed,  would  listen  for  a  mo- 
ment, and  then  come  out  with  his  invariable  declaration: 

"All  this  is  very  well,  gentlemen;  but  he  can't  throw 
any  of  his  coal-dust  in  my  eyes.  There's  nothing  in  it* 
Why,  there  can't  be  anything  in  it.  A  fellow  like  that 
for  manager?  Phoo!" 

Was  it  the  clairvoyance  of  imbecile  hatred,  or  mere 
stupid  tenacity  of  opinion,  which  ends  sometimes  by 
scoring  against  the  world  in  a  most  astonishing  manner? 
Most  of  us  can  remember  instances  of  triumphant  folly; 
and  that  ass  Schomberg  triumphed.  The  T.  B.  C.  Co. 
went  into  liquidation,  as  I  began  by  telling  you.  The 
Tesmans  washed  their  hands  of  it.  The  Government  can- 
celled those  famous  contracts.  The  talk  died  out,  and  pres- 
ently it  was  remarked  here  and  there  that  Heyst  had 
faded  completely  away.  He  had  become  invisible,  as  in 
those  early  days  when  he  used  to  make  a  bolt  clear  out 
of  sight  in  his  attempts  to  break  away  from  the  enchant- 
ment of  "these  isles,"  either  in  the  direction  of  New 
Guinea  or  in  the  direction  of  Saigon — ^to  cannibals  or  to 
cafes.  The  enchanted  Heyst!  Had  he  at  last  broken  the 
spell?  Had  he  died?  We  were  too  indifferent  to  wonder 
over-much.  You  see  we  had  on  the  whole  liked  him  well 
enough.  And  liking  is  not  sufficient  to  keep  going  the  inter- 
est one  takes  in  a  human  being.  With  hatred,  apparently, 
it  is  otherwise.  Schomberg  couldn't  forget  Heyst.  The 
keen,  manly  Teutonic  creature  was  a  good  hater.  A  fool 
often  is. 

"Good  evening,  gentlemen.  Have  you  got  everything 
you  want?  So!  Good!  You  see?  What  was  I  always  tell- 
ing you?  Aha!  There  was  nothing  in  it.  I  knew  it.  But 
what  I  would  like  to  know  is  what  became  of  that — 
Swede." 

He  put  a  stress  on  the  word  Swede  as  if  it  meant 
scoundrel.   He   detested   Scandinavians  generally.   Why? 


VICTORY  25 

Goodness  only  knows.  A  fool  like  that  is  unfathomable. 
He  continued : 

"It*s  five  months  or  more  since  I  have  spoken  to  any- 
body who  has  seen  him/' 

As  I  have  said,  we  were  not  much  interested;  but 
Schomberg,  of  course,  could  not  understand  that.  He  was 
grotesquely  dense.  Whenever  three  people  came  together 
in  his  hotel,  he  took  good  care  that  Heyst  should  be  with 
them. 

"I  hope  the  fellow  did  not  go  and  drown  himself,"  he 
would  add  with  a  comical  earnestness  that  ought  to  have 
made  us  shudder;  only  our  crowd  was  superficial,  and 
did  not  apprehend  the  psychology  of  this  pious  hope. 

"Why?  Heyst  isn't  in  debt  to  you  for  drinks,  is  he?'* 
somebody  asked  him  once  with  shallow  scorn. 

"Drinks!  Oh,  dear,  no!" 

The  innkeeper  was  not  mercenary.  Teutonic  tempera- 
ment seldom  is.  But  he  put  on  a  sinister  expression  to 
tell  us  that  Heyst  had  not  paid  perhaps  three  visits  alto- 
gether to  his  "establishment."  This  was  Heyst's  crime,  for 
which  Schomberg  wished  him  nothing  less  than  a  long 
and  tormented  existence.  Observe  the  Teutonic  sense  of 
proportion  and  nice  forgiving  temper. 

At  last,  one  afternoon,  Schomberg  was  seen  approach- 
ing a  group  of  his  customers.  He  was  obviously  in  high 
glee.  He  squared  his  manly  chest  with  great  importance. 

"Gentlemen,  I  have  news  of  him.  Who?  Why,  that 
Swede.  He  is  still  on  Samburan.  He's  never  been  away 
from  it.  The  company  is  gone,  the  engineers  are  gone, 
the  clerks  are  gone,  the  coolies  are  gone,  everything's 
gone;  but  there  he  sticks.  Captain  Davidson,  coming  by 
from  the  westward,  saw  him  with  his  own  eyes.  Some- 
thing white  on  the  wharf;  so  he  steamed  in  and  went 
ashore  in  a  small  boat.  Heyst,  right  enough.  Put  a  book 
into  his  pocket,  always  very  polite.  Been  strolling  on  the 
wharf  and  reading.  T  remain  in  possession  here,'  he  told 


26  VICTORY 

Captain  Davidson.  What  I  want  to  know  is  what  he  gets 
to  eat  there.  A  piece  of  dried  fish  now  and  then — what? 
That's  coming  down  pretty  low  for  a  man  who  turned 
up  his  nose  at  my  table-d'hote !" 

He  winked  with  immense  maHce.  A  bell  started  ring- 
ing, and  he  led  the  way  to  the  dining-room  as  if  into  a 
temple,  very  grave,  with  the  air  of  a  benefactor  of  man- 
kind. His  ambition  was  to  feed  it  at  a  profitable  price, 
and  his  delight  was  to  talk  of  it  behind  its  back.  It  was 
very  characteristic  of  him  to  gloat  over  the  idea  of  Heyst 
having  nothing  decent  to  eat. 


IV 

A  FEW  of  US  who  were  sufficiently  interested  went  to 
Davidson  for  details.  These  were  not  many.  He  told  us 
that  he  passed  to  the  north  of  Samburan  on  purpose  to 
see  what  was  going  on.  At  first,  it  looked  as  if  that  side 
of  the  island  had  been  altogether  abandoned.  This  was 
what  he  expected.  Presently,  above  the  dense  mass  of 
vegetation  that  Samburan  presents  to  view,  he  saw  the 
head  of  the  flagstaff  without  a  flag.  Then,  while  steaming 
across  the  slight  indentation  which  for  a  time  was  known 
officially  as  Black  Diamond  Bay,  he  made  out  with  his 
glass  the  white  figure  on  the  coaling-wharf .  It  could  be 
no  one  but  Heyst. 

"I  thought  for  certain  he  wanted  to  be  taken  off,  so 
I  steamed  in.  He  made  no  signs.  However,  I  lowered  a 
boat.  I  could  not  see  another  living  being  anywhere.  Yes. 
He  had  a  book  in  his  hand.  He  looked  exactly  as  we  have 
always  seen  him — very  neat,  white  shoes,  cork  helmet. 
He  explained  to  me  that  he  had  always  had  a  taste  for 
solitude.  It  was  the  first  I  ever  heard  of  it,  I  told  him. 
He  only  smiled.  What  could  I  say?  He  isn't  the  sort  of 
man  one  can  speak  familiarly  to.  There's  something  in 
him.  One  doesn't  care  to. 

"  'But  what's  the  object?  Are  you  thinking  of  keeping 
possession  of  the  mine?'  I  asked  him. 

"  'Something,  of  the  sort,'  he  says.  T  am  keeping  hold.' 

"  'But  all  this  is  as  dead  as  Julius  Caesar/  I  cried.  *In 
fact,  you  have  nothing  worth  holding  on  to,  Heyst.' 

"  'Oh,  I  am  done  with  facts,'  says  he,  putting  his  hand 
to  his  helmet  sharply  with  one  of  his  short  bows. 

27 


28  VICTORY 

Thus  dismissed,  Davidson  went  on  board  his  ship, 
swung  her  out,  and  as  he  was  steaming  away  he  watched 
from  the  bridge  Heyst  walking  shoreward  along  the 
wharf.  He  marched  into  the  long  grass  and  vanished — 
all  but  the  top  of  his  white  cork  helmet,  which  seemed  to 
swim  in  a  green  sea.  Then  that  too  disappeared,  as  if  it 
had  sunk  into  the  living  depths  of  the  tropical  vegetation, 
which  is  more  jealous  of  men's  conquests  than  the  ocean, 
and  which  was  about  to  close  over  the  last  vestiges  of  the 
liquidated  Tropical  Belt  Coal  Company — A.  Heyst,  mana- 
ger in  the  East. 

Davidson,  a  good,  simple  fellow  ixi  his  way,  was 
strangely  affected.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  he  knew  very 
little  of  Heyst.  He  was  one  of  those  whom  Heyst's  fin- 
ished courtesy  of  attitude  and  intonation  most  strongly 
disconcerted.  He  himself  was  a  fellow  of  fine  feeling, 
I  think,  though  of  course  he  had  no  more  polish  than 
the  rest  of  us.  We  were  naturally  a  hail-fellow-well-met 
crowd,  with  standards  of  our  own — no  worse,  I  daresay, 
than  other  people's ;  but  polish  was  not  one  of  them. 
Davidson's  fineness  was  real  enough  to  alter  the  course 
of  the  steamer  he  commanded*  Instead  of  passing  to  the 
south  of  Samburan,  he  made  it  his  practice  to  take  the 
passage  along  the  north  shore,  within  about  a  mile  of  the 
wharf. 

"He  can  see  us  if  he  likes  to  see  us,"  remarked  David- 
son. Then  he  had  an  after-thought:  "I  say!  I  hope  he 
won't  think  I  am  intruding,  eh?" 

We  reassured  him  on  the  point  of  correct  behaviour. 
The  sea  is  open  to  all. 

This  slight  deviation  added  some  ten  miles  to  David- 
son's round  trip,  but  as  that  was  sixteen  hundred  miles 
it  did  not  matter  much. 

*T  have  told  my  owner  of  it,"  said  the  conscientious 
commander  of  the  Sissie, 

His  owner  had  a  face  like  an  ancient  lemon.  He  was 


VICTORY  29 

small  and  wizened — ^which  was  strange,  because  gener- 
ally a  Chinaman,  as  he  grows  in  prosperity,  puts  on  inches 
of  girth  and  stature.  To  serve  a  Chinese  firm  is  not  so 
bad.  Once  they  become  convinced  you  deal  straight  by 
them,  their  confidence  becomes  unlimited.  You  can  do  no 
wrong.  So  Davidson's  old  Chinaman  squeaked  hurriedly: 

"All  right,  all  right,  all  right.  You  do  what  you  like, 
captain.'* 

And  there  was  an  end  of  the  matter;  not  altogether, 
though.  From  time  to  time  the  Chinaman  used  to  ask 
Davidson  about  the  white  man.  He  was  still  there,  eh? 

"I  never  see  him,"  Davidson  had  to  confess  to  his 
owner,  who  would  peer  at  him  silently  through  round, 
horn-rimmed  spectacles,  several  sizes  too  large  for  his 
little  old  face.  ''I  never  see  him." 

To  me,  on  occasions,  he  would  say : 

*T  haven't  a  doubt  he's  there.  He  hides.  It's  very 
unpleasant."  Davidson  was  a  little  vexed  with  Heyst. 
"Funny  thing,"  he  went  on.  "Of  all  the  people  I  speak 
to,  nobody  ever  asks  after  him  but  that  Chinaman  of 
mine — and  Schomberg,"  he  added  after  a  while. 

Yes,  Schomberg,  of  course.  He  was  asking  everybody 
about  everything,  and  arranging  the  information  into  the 
most  scandalous  shape  his  imagination  could  invent. 
From  time  to  time  he  would  step  up,  his  blinking, 
cushioned  eyes,  his  thick  lips,  his  very  chestnut  beard, 
looking  full  of  malice. 

"'Evening,  gentlemen.  Have  you  got  all  you  want? 
So!  Good!  Well,  I  am  told  the  jungle  has  choked  the 
very  sheds  in  Black  Diamond  Bay.  Fact.  He's  a  hermit 
in  the  wilderness  now.  But  what  can  this  manager  get 
to  eat  there?  It  beats  me." 

Sometimes  a  stranger  would  inquire  with  natural 
curiosity : 

"Who?  What  manager?" 

"Oh,  a  certain  Swede," — with  a  sinister  emphasis,  as 


30  VICTORY 

if  he  were  saying  "a  certain  brigand." — "Well  known 
here.  He's  turned  hermit  from  shame.  That's  what  the 
devil  does  when  he's  found  out." 

Hermit.  This  was  the  latest  of  the  more  or  less  witty 
labels  applied  to  Heyst  during  his  aimless  pilgrimage  in 
this  section  of  the  tropical  belt,  where  the  inane  clacking 
of  Schomberg's  tongue  vexed  our  ears. 

But  apparently  Heyst  was  not  a  hermit  by  tempera- 
ment. The  sight  of  his  kind  was  not  invincibly  odious 
to  him.  We  must  believe  this,  since  for  some  reason  or 
other  he  did  come  out  from  his  retreat  for  a  while.  Per- 
haps it  was  only  to  see  whether  there  were  any  letters 
for  him  at  the  Tesmans.  I  don't  know.  Xo  one  knows. 
But  this  reappearance  shows  that  his  detachment  from 
the  world  was  not  complete.  And  incompleteness  of  any 
sort  leads  to  trouble.  Axel  Heyst  ought  not  to  have 
cared  for  his  letters — or  whatever  it  was  that  brought 
him  out  after  something  more  than  a  year  and  a  half  in 
Samburan.  But  it  was  of  no  use.  He  had  not  the  hermit's 
vocation !  That  was  the  trouble,  it  seems. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  he  suddenly  reappeared  in  the  world, 
broad  chest,  bald  forehead,  long  moustaches,  polite  man- 
ner, and  all — ^the  complete  Heyst,  even  to  the  kindly, 
sunken  eyes  on  which  there  still  rested  the  shadow^  of 
Morrison's  death.  Naturally,  it  was  Davidson  who  had 
given  him  a  Hft  out  of  his  forsaken  island.  There  were 
no  other  opportunities,  unless  some  native  craft  were 
passing  by — a  ytry  remote  and  unsatisfactor}^  chance  to 
wait  for.  Yes,  he  came  out  with  Davidson,  to  whom  he 
volunteered  the  statement  that  it  was  only  for  a  short 
time — a  few  days,  no  more.  He  meant  to  go  back  to 
Samburan. 

Davidson  expressing  his  horror  and  incredulit}^  of  such 
foolishness,  Heyst  explained  that  when  the  company  came 
into  being  he  had  his  few  belongings  sent  out  from 
Europe. 


VICTORY  31 

To  Davidson  as  to  any  of  us,  the  idea  of  Heyst,  the 
wandering,  drifting,  unattached  Heyst,  having  any  belong- 
ings of  the  sort  that  can  furnish  a  house  was  startHngly 
novel.  It  was  grotesquely  fantastic.  It  was  like  a  bird 
owning  real  property. 

"Belongings?  Do  you  mean  chairs  and  tables?''  David- 
son asked  with  unconcealed  astonishment. 

Heyst  did  mean  that.  "My  poor  father  died  in  London. 
It  has  been  all  stored  there  ever  since,"  he  explained. 

"For  all  these  years?"  exclaimed  Davidson,  thinking 
how  long  we  all  had  known  Heyst  flitting  from  tree  to 
tree  in  a  wilderness. 

"Even  longer,"  said  Heyst,  who  had  understood  very 
well. 

This  seemed  to  imply  that  he  had  been  wandering  be- 
fore he  came  under  our  observation.  In  what  regions? 
At  what  early  age?  Mystery.  Perhaps  he  was  a  bird  that 
had  never  had  a  nest. 

"I  left  school  early,"  he  remarked  once  to  Davidson, 
on  the  passage.  "It  was  in  England.  A  very  good  school. 
I  was  not  a  shining  success  there." 

The  confessions  of  Heyst.  Not  one  of  us — with  the 
probable  exception  of  Morrison,  who  was  dead — ^had  ever 
heard  so  much  of  his  history.  It  looks  as  if  the  experience 
of  hermit  life  had  the  power  to  loosen  one's  tongue, 
doesn't  it? 

During  that  memorable  passage,  in  the  Sissie,  which 
took  about  two  days,  he  volunteered  other  hints — for  you 
could  not  call  it  information — about  his  history.  And 
Davidson  was  interested.  He  was  interested  not  because 
the  hints  were  exciting  but  because  of  that  innate  curi- 
osity about  our  fellows  which  is  a  trait  of  human  nature. 
Davidson's  existence  too,  running  the  Sissie  along  the 
Java  Sea  and  back  again,  was  distinctly  monotonous  and, 
in  a  sense,  lonely.  He  never  had  any  sort  of  company 
on  board.  Native  deck-passengers  in  plenty,  of   course, 


32  VICTORY 

but  never  a  white  man,  so  the  presence  of  Heyst  for  two 
days  must  have  been  a  godsend.  Davidson  was  telling  us 
all  about  it  afterward.  Heyst  said  that  his  father  had 
written  a  lot  of  books.  He  was  a  philosopher. 

"Seems  to  me  he  must  have  been  something  of  a 
crank,  too,"  was  Davidson's  comment.  "Apparently  he 
had  quarrelled  with  his  people  in  Sweden.  Just  the  sort 
of  father  you  would  expect  Heyst  to  have.  Isn't  he  a  bit 
of  a  crank  himself?  He  told  me  that  directly  his  father 
died  he  lit  out  into  the  wide  world  on  his  own,  and  had 
been  on  the  move  till  he  fetched  up  against  this  famous 
coal  business.  Fits  the  son  of  his  father  somehow,  don't 
you  think?" 

For  the  rest,  Heyst  was  as  polite  as  ever.  He  offered 
to  pay  for  his  passage;  but  when  Davidson  refused  to 
hear  of  it  he  seized  him  heartily  by  the  hand,  gave  one 
of  his  courtly  bows,  and  declared  that  he  was  touched 
by  his  friendly  proceedings. 

"I  am  not  alluding  to  this  trifling  amount  which  you 
decline  to  take,"  he  went  on,  giving  a  shake  to  Davidson's 
hand.  "But  I  am  touched  by  your  humanity."  Another 
shake.  "Believe  me,  I  am  profoundly  aware  of  having 
been  an  object  of  it."  Final  shake  of  the  hand.  All  this 
meant  that  Heyst  understood  in  a  proper  sense  the  little 
Sissie's  periodical  appearance  in  sight  of  his  hermitage. 

"He's  a  genuine  gentleman,"  Davidson  said  to  us.  "I 
was  really  sorry  when  he  went  ashore.'* 

We  asked  him  where  he  had  left  Heyst. 

"Why,  in  Sourabaya — where  else?" 

The  Tesmans  had  their  principal  counting-house  in 
Sourabaya.  There  had  long  existed  a  connection  between 
Heyst  and  the  Tesmans.  The  incongruity  of  a  hermit 
having  agents  did  not  strike  us,  nor  yet  the  absurdity  of 
a  forgotten  cast-off,  derelict  manager  of  a  wrecked,  col- 
lapsed, vanished  enterprise,  having  business  to  attend  to. 
We  said  Sourabaya,  of  course,  and  took  it  for  granted 


VICTORY  33 

that  he  would  stay  with  one  of  the  Tesmans.  One  of  us 
even  wondered  what  sort  of  reception  he  would  get ;  for 
it  was  known  that  Julius  Tesman  was  unreasonably  bitter 
about  the  Tropical  Belt  Coal  fiasco.  But  Davidson  set  us 
right.  It  was  nothing  of  the  kind.  Heyst  went  to  stay  in 
Schomberg's  hotel,  going  ashore  in  the  hotel  launch.  Not 
that  Schomberg  would  think  of  sending  his  launch  along- 
side a  mere  trader  like  the  Sissie.  But  she  had  been  meet- 
ing a  coasting  mail-packet,  and  had  been  signalled  to. 
Schomberg  himself  was  steering  her. 

"You  should  have  seen  Schomberg's  eyes  bulge  out 
when  Heyst  jumped  in  with  an  ancient  brown  leather 
bag!"  said  Davidson.  *'He  pretended  not  to  know  who 
it  was — at  first,  anyway.  I  didn't  go  ashore  with  them. 
We  didn't  stay  more  than  a  couple  of  hours  altogether. 
Landed  two  thousand  cocoanuts  and  cleared  out.  I  have 
agreed  to  pick  him  up  again  on  my  next  trip  in  twenty 
days'  time." 


V 

Davidson  happened  to  be  two  days  late  on  his  return 
trip;  no  great  matter,  certainly,  but  he  made  a  point 
of  going  ashore  at  once,  during  the  hottest  hour  of  the 
afternoon,  to  look  for  Heyst.  Schomberg's  hotel  stood 
back  in  an  extensive  enclosure  containing  a  garden,  some 
large  trees,  and,  under  their  spreading  boughs,  a  de- 
tached "hall  available  for  concerts  and  other  perform- 
ances," as  Schomberg  worded  it  in  his  advertisements. 
Torn  and  fluttering  bills,  intimating  in  heavy  red  capitals 
"Concerts  every  night,"  were  stuck  on  the  brick  pillars 
on  each  side  of  the  gateway. 

The  walk  had  been  long  and  confoundedly  sunny. 
Davidson  stood  wiping  his  wet  neck  and  face  on  what 
Schomberg  called  "the  piazza."  Several  doors  opened 
on  to  it,  but  all  the  screens  were  down.  Not  a  soul  was 
in  sight,  not  even  a  China  boy — nothing  but  a  lot  of 
painted  iron  chairs  and  tables.  Solitude,  shade,  and  gloomy 
silence — and  a  faint,  treacherous  breeze  which  came  from 
under  the  trees  and  quite  unexpectedly  caused  the  melting 
Davidson  to  shiver  slightly — ^the  little  shiver  of  the  tropics 
which  in  Sourabaya,  especially,  often  means  fever  and  the 
hospital  to  the  incautious  white  man. 

The  prudent  Davidson  sought  shelter  in  the  nearest 
darkened  room.  In  the  artificial  dusk,  beyond  the  levels 
of  shrouded  billiard-tables,  a  white  form  heaved  up  from 
two  chairs  on  which  it  had  been  extended.  The  middle  of 
the  day,  table  d'hote  tiffin  once  over,  was  Schomberg's 
easy  time.  He  lounged  out,  portly,  deliberate,  on  the 
defensive,  the  great   fair  beard  like  a  cuirass  over  his 

34 


VICTORY  35 

manly  chest.  He  did  not  like  Davidson,  never  a  very 
faithful  client  of  his.  He  hit  a  bell  on  one  of  the  tables 
as  he  went  by,  and  asked  in  a  distant,  Officer-of-the 
Reserve  manner : 

''You  desire?" 

The  good  Davidson  still  sponging  his  wet  neck,  de- 
clared with  simplicity  that  he  had  come  to  fetch  away 
Heyst,  as  agreed. 

"Not  here !" 

A  Chinaman  appeared  in  response  to  the  bell.  Schom- 
berg  turned  to  him  very  severely: 

'Take  the  gentleman's  order.'' 

Davidson  had  to  be  going.  Couldn't  wait — only  begged 
that  Heyst  should  be  informed  that  the  Sissie  would 
leave  at  midnight. 

"Not — ^here,  I  am  telling  you!" 

Davidson  slapped  his  thigh  in  concern. 

"Dear  me!  Hospital,  I  suppose."  A  natural  enough 
surmise  in  a  very  feverish  locality. 

The  Lieutenant  of  the  Reserve  only  pursed  up  his 
mouth  and  raised  his  eyebrows  without  looking  at  him. 
It  might  have  meant  anything,  but  Davidson  dismissed 
the  hospital  idea  with  confidence.  However,  he  had  to 
get  hold  of  Heyst  between  this  and  midnight. 

"He  has  been  staying  here?"  he  asked. 

"Yes,  he  was  staying  here." 

"Can  you  tell  me  where  he  is  now?'*  Davidson  went 
on  placidly.  Within  himself  he  was  beginning  to  grow 
anxious,  having  developed  the  affection  of  a  self-appointed 
protector  towards  Heyst.  The  answer  he  got  was : 

"Can't  tell.  It's  none  of  my  business,"  accompanied 
by  majestic  oscillations  of  the  hotel-keeper's  head,  hinting 
at  some  awful  mystery. 

Davidson  was  placidity  itself.  It  was  his  nature.  He 
did  not  betray  his  sentiments,  which  were  not  favourable 
to  Schomberg. 


36  VICTORY 

"I  am  sure  to  find  out  at  the  Tesmans'  office,"  he 
thought.  But  it  was  a  very  hot  hour,  and  if  Heyst  was 
down  at  the  port  he  would  have  learned  already  that 
the  Sissie  was  in.  It  was  even  possible  that  Heyst  had 
already  gone  on  board,  where  he  could  enjoy  a  coolness 
denied  to  the  town.  Davidson,  being  stout,  was  much 
preoccupied  with  coolness  and  inclined  to  immobility.  He 
lingered  awhile,  as  if  irresolute.  Schomberg,  at  the  door, 
looking  out,  affected  perfect  indifference.  He  could  not 
keep  it  up,  though.  Suddenly  he  turned  inward  and  asked 
with  brusque  rage: 

"You  wanted  to  see  him?" 

"Why,  yes,"  said  Davidson.  "We  agreed  to  meet " 

"Don't  you  bother.  He  doesn't  care  about  that  now." 

"Doesn't  he?" 

"Well,  you  can  judge  for  yourself.  He  isn't  here,  is 
he?  You  take  my  word  for  it.  Don't  you  bother  about 
him.  I  am  advising  you  as  a  friend." 

"Thank  you,"  said  Davidson,  inwardly  startled  at  the 
savage  tone.  "I  think  I  will  sit  down  for  a  moment  and 
have  a  drink,  after  all." 

This  was  not  what  Schomberg  had  expected  to  hear. 
He  called  brutally : 

"Boy !" 

The  Chinaman  approached,  and  after  referring  him  to 
the  white  man  by  a  nod  the  hotel-keeper  departed,  mut- 
tering to  himself.  Davidson  heard  him  gnash  his  teeth 
as  he  went. 

Davidson  sat  alone  with  the  billiard-tables  as  if  there 
had  been  not  a  soul  staying  in  the  hotel.  His  placidity 
was  so  genuine  that  he  was  not  unduly  fretting  himself 
over  the  absence  of  Heyst  or  the  mysterious  manners 
Schomberg  had  treated  him  to.  He  was  considering  these 
things  in  his  own  fairly  shrewd  way.  Something  had 
happened ;  and  he  was  loath  to  go  away  to  investigate, 
being  restrained  by  a  presentiment  that  somehow  enlight- 


VICTORY  37 

enment  would  come  to  him  there.  A  poster  of  "Concerts 
Every  Evening,"  Hke  those  on  the  gate,  but  in  a  good  state 
of  preservation,  hung  on  the  wall  fronting  him.  He  looked 
at  it  idly  and  was  struck  by  the  fact — then  not  so  very 
common — ^that  it  was  a  ladies'  orchestra;  "Zangiacomo's 
eastern  tour — eighteen  performers."  The  poster  stated 
that  they  had  had  the  honour  of  playing  their  select 
repertoire  before  various  colonial  excellencies,  also  before 
pashas,  sheiks,  chiefs,  H.  H.  the  Sultan  of  Mascate,  etc., 
etc. 

Davidson  felt  sorry  for  the  eighteen  lady-performers. 
He  knew  what  that  sort  of  life  was  like,  the  sordid  con- 
ditions and  brutal  incidents  of  such  tours  led  by  such 
Zangiacomos  who  often  were  anything  but  musicians  by 
profession.  While  he  was  staring  at  the  poster,  a  door 
somewhete  at  his  back  opened,  and  a  woman  came  in 
who  was  looked  upon  as  Schomberg's  wife,  no  doubt  with 
truth.  As  somebody  remarked  cynically  once,  she  was  too 
unattractive  to  be  anything  else.  The  opinion  that  he 
treated  her  abominably  was  based  on  her  frightened  ex- 
pression. Davidson  lifted  his  hat  to  her.  Mrs.  Schomberg 
gave  him  an  inclination  of  her  sallow  head  and  inconti- 
nently sat  down  behind  a  sort  of  raised  counter,  facing 
the  door,  with  a  mirror  and  rows  of  bottles  at  her  back. 
Her  hair  was  very  elaborately  done  with  two  ringlets 
on  the  left  side  of  her  scraggy  neck;  her  dress  was  of 
silk,  and  she  had  come  on  duty  for  the  afternoon.  For 
some  reason  or  other  Schomberg  exacted  this  from  her, 
though  she  added  nothing  to  the  fascinations  of  the  place. 
She  sat  there  in  the  smoke  and  noise,  like  an  enthroned 
idol,  smiling  stupidly  over  the  billiards  from  time  to 
time,  speaking  to  no  one,  and  no  one  speaking  to  her. 
Schomberg  himself  took  no  more  interest  in  her  than 
may  be  implied  in  a  sudden  and  totally  unmotived  scowl. 
Otherwise  the  very  Chinamen  ignored  her  existence. 

She  had  interrupted  Davidson  in  his  reflections.  Being 


38  VICTORY 

alone  with  her,  her  silence  and  open-eyed  immobility 
made  him  uncomfortable.  He  was  easily  sorry  for  people. 
It  seemed  rude  not  to  take  any  notice  of  her.  He  said,  in 
allusion  to  the  poster:  *'Are  you  having  these  people  in 
the  house?" 

She  was  so  unused  to  being  addressed  by  customers 
that  at  the  sound  of  his  voice  she  jumped  in  her  seat. 
Davidson  was  telling  us  afterward  that  she  jumped  ex- 
actly like  a  figure  made  of  wood,  without  losing  her  rigid 
immobility.  She  did  not  even  move  her  eyes;  but  she 
answered  him  freely,  though  her  very  lips  seemed  made 
of  wood. 

"They  stayed  here  over  a  month.  They  are  gone  now. 
They  played  every  evening." 

"Pretty  good,  w^ere  they?" 

To  this  she  said  nothing;  and  as  she  kept  on  staring 
fixedly  in  front  of  her,  her  silence  disconcerted  David- 
son. It  looked  as  if  she  had  not  heard  him — which  was 
impossible.  Perhaps  she  drew  the  line  of  speech  at  the 
expression  of  opinions.  Schomberg  might  have  trained 
her,  for  domestic  reasons,  to  keep  them  to  herself.  But 
Davidson  felt  in  honour  obliged  to  converse ;  so  he  said, 
putting  his  own  interpretation  on  this  surprising  silence : 

"I  see — not  much  account.  Such  bands  hardly  ever 
are.  An  Italian  lot,  Mrs.  Schomberg,  to  judge  by  the  name 
of  the  boss?" 

She  shook  her  head  negatively. 

"No.  He  is  a  German  really ;  only  he  dyes  his  hair  and 
beard  black  for  business.  Zangiacomo  is  his  business 
name." 

"That's  a  curious  fact,"  said  Davidson.  His  head  being 
full  of  Heyst,  it  occurred  to  him  that  she  might  be  aware 
of  other  facts.  This  was  a  very  amazing  discovery  to  any 
one  who  looked  at  Mrs.  Schomberg.  Nobody  had  ever 
suspected  her  of  having  a  mind,  I  mean  even  a  little  of 


VICTORY  39 

it,  I  mean  any  at  all.  One  was  inclined  to  think  of  her  as 
an  It — an  automaton,  a  very  plain  dummy,  with  an  ar- 
rangement for  bowing  the  head  at  times  and  smiling 
stupidly  now  and  then.  Davidson  viewed  her  profile  with 
a  flattened  nose,  a  hollow  cheek,  and  one  staring,  un- 
winking, goggle  eye.  He  asked  himself :  Did  that  speak 
just  now?  Will  it  speak  again?  It  was  as  exciting,  for 
the  mere  wonder  of  it,  as  trying  to  converse  with  a 
mechanism.  A  smile  played  about  the  fat  features  of 
Davidson;  the  smile  of  a  man  making  an  amusing  experi- 
ment. He  spoke  again  to  her: 

*'But  the  other  members  of  that  orchestra  were  real 
Italians,  were  they  not?" 

Of  course,  he  didn't  care.  He  wanted  to  see  whether 
the  mechanism  would  work  again.  It  did.  It  said  they 
were  not.  They  were  of  all  sorts,  apparently.  It  paused, 
with  the  one  goggle  eye  immovably  gazing  down  the 
whole  length  of  the  room  and  through  the  door  opening 
on  to  the  "piazza."  It  paused,  then  went  on  in  the  same 
low  pitch: 

"There  was  even  one  English  girl." 

"Poor  devil!"  said  Davidson.  "I  suppose  these  women 
are  not  much  better  than  slaves  really.  Was  that  fellow 
with  the  dyed  beard  decent  in  his  way?" 

The  mechanism  remained  silent.  The  sympathetic  soul 
of  Davidson  drew  its  own  conclusions. 

"Beastly  life  for  these  women !"  he  said.  "When  you 
say  an  English  girl,  Mrs.  Schomberg,  do  you  really  mean 
a  young  girl?  Some  of  these  orchestra  girls  are  no 
chicks." 

"Young  enough,"  came  the  low  voice  out  of  Mrs. 
Schomberg's  unmoved  physiognomy. 

Davidson,  encouraged,  remarked  that  he  was  sorry  for 
her.  He  was  easily  sorry  for  people. 

"Where  did  they  go  to  from  here?"  he  asked. 


40  VICTORY 

"She  did  not  go  with  them.  She  ran  away." 

This  was  the  pronouncement  Davidson  obtained  next. 
It  introduced  a  new  sort  of  interest. 

"Well!  Well!"  he  exclaimed  placidly;  and  then,  with 
the  air  of  a  man  who  knows  life:  "Who  with?"  he  in- 
quired with  assurance. 

Mrs.  Schomberg's  immobility  gave  her  an  appearance 
of  listening  intently.  Perhaps  she  was  really  listening, 
but  Schomberg  must  have  been  finishing  his  sleep  in 
some  distant  part  of  the  house.  The  silence  was  profound, 
and  lasted  long  enough  to  become  startling.  Then,  en- 
throned above  Davidson,  she  w^hispered  at  last : 

"That  friend  of  yours." 

"Oh,  you  know  I  am  here  looking  for  a  friend,"  said 
Davidson  hopefully.  "Won't  you  tell  me " 

"I've  told  you." 

"Eh?" 

A  mist  seemed  to  roll  away  from  before  Davidson's 
eyes,  disclosing  something  he  could  not  believe. 

"You  can't  mean  it !"  he  cried.  "He's  not  the  man  for 
it."  But  the  last  words  came  out  in  a  faint  voice.  Mrs. 
Schomberg  never  moved  her  head  the  least  bit.  Davidson, 
after  the  shock  which  made  him  sit  up,  went  slack  all 
over. 

"Heyst!  Such  a  perfect  gentleman!"  he  exclaimed 
weakly. 

Mrs.  Schomberg  did  not  seem  to  have  heard  him.  This 
startling  fact  did  not  tally  somehow  with  the  idea  David- 
son had  of  Heyst.  He  never  talked  of  women,  he  never 
seemed  to  think  of  them,  or  to  remember  that  they 
existed ;  and  then  all  at  once — like  this !  Running  off 
with  a  casual  orchestra  girl ! 

"You  might  have  knocked  me  down  with  a  feather," 
Davidson  told  us  some  time  afterward. 

By  then  he  w^as  taking  an  indulgent  view  of  both  the 
parties  to  that  amazing  transaction.  First  of  all,  on  reflec- 


VICTORY  41 

tion,  he  was  by  no  means  certain  that  it  prevented  Heyst 
from  being  a  perfect  gentleman,  as  before.  He  confronted 
our  open  grins  or  quiet  smiles  with  a  serious  round  face. 
Heyst  had  taken  the  girl  away  to  Samburan ;  and  that  was 
no  joking  matter.  The  loneliness,  the  ruins  of  the  spot, 
had  impressed  Davidson's  simple  soul.  They  were  in- 
compatible with  the  frivolous  comments  of  people  who 
had  not  seen  it.  That  black  jetty,  sticking  out  of  the  jungle 
into  the  empty  sea;  those  roof-ridges  of  deserted  houses 
peeping  dismally  above  the  long  grass !  Ough !  The  gi- 
gantic and  funereal  blackboard  sign  of  the  Tropical  Belt 
Coal  Company,  still  emerging  from  a  wild  growth  of 
bushes  like  an  inscription  stuck  above  a  grave  figured  by 
the  tall  heap  of  unsold  coal  at  the  shore  end  of  the  wharf, 
added  to  the  general  desolation. 

Thus  the  sensitive  Davidson.  The  girl  must  have  been 
miserable  indeed  to  follow  a  strange  man  to  such  a  spot. 
Heyst  had,  no  doubt,  told  her  the  truth.  He  was  a  gentle- 
man. But  no  words  could  do  justice  to  the  conditions 
of  life  on  Samburan.  A  desert  island  was  nothing  to  it. 
Moreover,  when  you  were  cast  away  on  a  desert  island — 
why,  you  could  not  help  yourself ;  but  to  expect  a  fiddle- 
playing  girl  out  of  an  ambulant  ladies'  orchestra  to  re- 
main content  there  for  a  day,  for  one  single  day,  was 
inconceivable.  She  would  be  frightened  at  the  first  sight 
of  it.  She  would  scream. 

The  capacity  for  sympathy  in  these  stout,  placid  men! 
Davidson  was  stirred  to  the  depths;  and  it  was  easy  to 
see  that  it  was  about  Heyst  that  he  was  concerned.  We 
asked  him  if  he  had  passed  that  way  lately. 

*'Oh,  yes.  I  always  do — about  half  a  mile  off." 

"Seen  anybody  about?" 

"No,  not  a  soul.  Not  a  shadow." 

"Did  you  blow  your  whistle?" 

"Blow  the  whistle?  You  think  I  would  do  such  a 
thing?" 


42  VICTORY 

He  rejected  the  mere  possibility  of  such  an  unwar- 
rantable intrusion.  Wonderfully  delicate  fellow,  David- 
son ! 

*'Well,  but  how  do  you  know  that  they  are  there?*' 
he  was  naturally  asked. 

Heyst  had  entrusted  Mrs.  Schomberg  with  a  message 
for  Davidson — a  few  lines  in  pencil  on  a  scrap  of  crum- 
pled paper.  It  was  to  the  effect  that  an  unforeseen  neces- 
sity was  driving  him  away  before  the  appointed  time.  He 
begged  Davidson's  indulgence  for  the  apparent  dis- 
courtesy. The  woman  of  the  house — meaning  Mrs. 
Schomberg — would  give  him  the  facts,  though  unable  to 
explain  them,  of  course. 

"What  was  there  to  explain?"  wondered  Davidson 
dubiously.  ''He  took  a  fancy  to  that  fiddle-playing  girl, 
and " 

"And  she  to  him,  apparently,''  I  suggested. 

"Wonderfully  quick  work,"  reflected  Davidson.  "What 
do  you  think  will  come  of  it?" 

"Repentance,  I  should  say.  But  how  is  it  that  Mrs. 
Schomberg  has  been  selected  for  a  confidante?" 

For  indeed  a  waxwork  figure  would  have  seemed  more 
useful  than  that  woman  whom  we  all  were  accustomed 
to  see  sitting  elevated  above  the  two  billiard-tables — 
without  expression,  without  movement,  without  voice, 
without  sight. 

"Why,  she  helped  the  girl  to  bolt,"  said  Davidson  turn- 
ing at  me  his  innocent  eyes,  rounded  by  the  state  of 
constant  amazement  in  which  this  affair  had  left  him, 
like  those  shocks  of  terror  or  sorrow  which  sometimes 
leave  their  victim  afflicted  by  nervous  trembling.  It  looked 
as  though  he  would  never  get  over  it. 

"Mrs.  Schomberg  jerked  Heyst's  note,  twisted  like  a 
pipe-light,  into  my  lap  while  I  sat  there  unsuspecting," 
Davidson  went  on.  "Directly  I  had  recovered  my  senses, 
I  asked  her  what  on  earth  she  had  to  do  with  it  that 


VICTORY  43 

Heyst  should  leave  it  with  her.  And  then,  behaving  like 
a  painted  image  rather  than  a  live  woman,  she  whispered, 
just  loud  enough  for  me  to  hear : 

"  'I  helped  them.  I  got  her  things  together,  tied  them  up 
in  my  own  shawl,  and  threw  them  into  the  compound 
out  of  a  back  window.  I  did  it.* 

*'That  woman  that  you  would  say  hadn't  the  pluck 
to  lift  her  little  finger !"  marvelled  Davidson  in  his  quiet, 
slightly  panting  voice.  **What  do  you  think  of  that?'' 

I  thought  she  must  have  had  some  interest  of  her  own 
to  serve.  She  was  too  lifeless  to  be  suspected  of  im- 
pulsive compassion.  It  was  impossible  to  think  that  Heyst 
had  bribed  her.  Whatever  means  he  had,  he  had  not  the 
means  to  do  that.  Or  could  it  be  that  she  was  moved  by 
that  disinterested  passion  for  delivering  a  woman  to  a 
man  which  in  respectable  spheres  is  called  matchmaking? 
— a  highly  irregular  example  of  it ! 

"It  must  have  been  a  very  small  bundle,"  remarked 
Davidson  further. 

"I  imagine  the  girl  must  have  been  specially  at- 
tractive," I  said. 

"I  don't  know.  She  was  miserable.  I  don't  suppose  it 
was  more  than  a  little  linen  and  a  couple  of  these  white 
frocks  they  wear  on  the  platform." 

Davidson  pursued  his  own  train  of  thought.  He  sup- 
posed that  such  a  thing  had  never  been  heard  of  in  the 
history  of  the  tropics.  For  where  could  you  find  an}/ 
one  to  steal  a  girl  out  of  an  orchestra?  No  doubt  fellows 
here  and  there  took  a  fancy  to  some  pretty  one — but  it 
was  not  for  running  away  with  her.  Oh  dear  no!  It 
needed  a  lunatic  like  Heyst. 

"Only  think  what  it  means,"  wheezed  Davidson,  imagi- 
native under  his  invincible  placidity.  "Just  only  try  to 
think!  Brooding  alone  on  Samburan  has  upset  his  brain. 
He  never  stopped  to  consider,  or  he  couldn't  have  done 
it.  No  sane  man   .   .   .   How  is  a  thing  like  that  to  go  on? 


44  VICTORY 

What's  he  going  to  do  with  her  in  the  end?  It's  madness.'* 

"You  say  that  he's  mad.  Schomberg  tells  us  that  he 
must  be  starving  on  his  island ;  so  he  may  end  yet  by 
eating  her,"  I  suggested. 

Mrs.  Schomberg  had  had  no  time  to  enter  into  details, 
Davidson  told  us.  Indeed,  the  v^onder  v^as  that  they  had 
been  left  alone  so  long.  The  drowsy  afternoon  was  slip- 
ping by.  Footsteps  and  voices  resounded  on  the  verandah 
— I  beg  pardon,  the  piazza ;  the  scraping  of  chairs,  the 
ping  of  a  smitten  bell.  Customers  were  turning  up.  Mrs. 
Schomberg  was  begging  Davidson  hurriedly,  but  without 
looking  at  him,  to  say  nothing  to  any  one,  when  on  a 
half-uttered  word  her  nervous  whisper  was  cut  short. 
Through  a  small  inner  door  Schomberg  came  in,  his  hair 
brushed,  his  beard  combed  neatly,  but  his  eyelids  still 
heavy  from  his  nap.  He  looked  with  suspicion  at  David- 
son, and  even  glanced  at  his  wife ;  but  he  was  baffled 
by  the  natural  placidity  of  the  one  and  the  acquired  habit 
of  immobility  in  the  other. 

**Have  you  sent  out  the  drinks?"  he  asked  surlily. 

She  did  not  open  her  lips,  because  just  then  the  head 
boy  appeared  with  a  loaded  tray,  on  his  way  out.  Schom- 
berg went  to  the  door  and  greeted  the  customers  outside, 
but  did  not  join  them.  He  remained  blocking  half  the 
doorway,  with  his  back  to  the  room,  and  was  still  there 
when  Davidson,  after  sitting  still  for  a  while,  rose  to  go. 
At  the  noise  he  made  Schomberg  turned  his  head,  watched 
him  lift  his  hat  to  Mrs.  Schomberg  and  receive  her 
wooden  bow  accompanied  by  a  stupid  grin,  and  then 
looked  away.  He  was  loftily  dignified.  Davidson  stopped 
at  the  door,  deep  in  his  simplicity. 

*T  am  sorry  you  won't  tell  me  anything  about  my 
friend's  absence,"  he  said.  "My  friend  Heyst,  you  know. 
I  suppose  the  only  course  for  me  now  is  to  make  in- 
quiries down  at  the  port.  I  shall  hear  something  there, 
I  don't  doubt." 


VICTORY  45 

"Make  inquiries  of  the  devil!"  replied  Schomberg  in 
a  hoarse  mutter. 

Davidson's  purpose  in  addressing  the  hotel-keeper  had 
been  mainly  to  make  Mrs.  Schomberg  safe  from  sus- 
picion; but  he  would  fain  have  heard  something  more 
of  Heyst's  exploit  from  another  point  of  view.  It  was  a 
shrewd  try.  It  was  successful  in  a  rather  startling  way, 
because  the  hotel-keeper's  point  of  view  was  horribly 
abusive.  All  of  a  sudden,  in  the  same  hoarse  sinister  tone, 
he  proceeded  to  call  Heyst  many  names,  of  which  "pig- 
dog"  was  not  the  worst,  with  such  vehemence  that  he 
actually  choked  himself.  Profiting  from  the  pause,  David- 
son, whose  temperament  could  withstand  worse  shocks, 
remonstrated  in  an  undertone : 

"It's  unreasonable  to  get  so  angry  as  that.  Even  if  he 
had  run  off  with  your  cash-box " 

The  big  hotel-keeper  bent  down  and  put  his  infuriated 
face  close  to  Davidson's. 

"My  cash-box !  My — he — look  here,  Captain  Davidson ! 
He  ran  off  with  a  girl.  What  do  I  care  for  the  girl  ?  The 
girl  is  nothing  to  me." 

He  shot  out  an  infamous  word  which  made  Davidson 
start.  That's  what  the  girl  was;  and  he  reiterated  the 
assertion  that  she  was  nothing  to  him.  What  he  was 
concerned  for  was  the  good  name  of  his  house.  Wherever 
he  had  been  established,  he  had  always  had  "artist  parties" 
staying  in  his  house.  One  recommended  him  to  the  others ; 
but  what  would  happen  now,  when  it  got  about  that  leaders 
ran  the  risk  in  his  house — his  house — of  losing  members 
of  their  troupe?  And  just  now,  when  he  had  spent  seven 
hundred  and  thirty- four  guilders  in  building  a  concert- 
hall  in  his  compound.  Was  that  a  thing  to  do  in  a  re- 
spectable hotel?  The  cheek,  the  indecency,  the  impudence, 
the  atrocity!  Vagabond,  impostor,  swindler,  ruffian, 
schwein-hund  I 

He  had  seized  Davidson  by  a  button  of  his  coat,  de- 


46  VICTORY 

taining  him  in  the  doorway,  and  exactly  in  the  Hne  of  Mrs. 
Schomberg's  stony  gaze.  Davidson  stole  a  glance  in 
that  direction  and  thought  of  making  some  sort  of  reassur- 
ing sign  to  her,  but  she  looked  so  bereft  of  senses,  and 
almost  of  life,  perched  up  there,  that  it  seemed  not  worth 
while.  He  disengaged  his  button  with  firm  placidity. 
Thereupon,  with  a  last  stifled  curse,  Schomberg  vanished 
somewhere  within,  to  try  and  compose  his  spirits  in  soli- 
tude. Davidson  stepped  out  on  the  verandah.  The  party 
of  customers  there  had  become  aware  of  the  explosive 
interlude  in  the  doorway.  Davidson  knew  one  of  these 
men,  and  nodded  to  him  in  passing;  but  his  acquaintance 
called  out : 

''Isn't  he  in  a  filthy  temper?  He's  been  like  that  ever 
since." 

The  speaker  laughed  aloud,  while  all  the  others  sat 
smiling.  Davidson  stopped. 

''Yes,  rather."  His  feelings  were,  he  told  us,  those  of 
bewildered  resignation ;  but  of  course  that  was  no  more 
visible  to  the  others  than  the  emotions  of  a  turtle  when 
it  withdraws  into  its  shell. 

"It  seems  unreasonable,"  he  murmured  thoughtfully. 

"Oh,  but  they  had  a  scrap !"  the  other  said. 

"What  do  you  mean  ?  Was  there  a  fight ! — a  fight  with 
Heyst?"  asked  Davidson,  much  perturbed,  if  somewhat 
incredulous. 

"Heyst?  No,  these  two — ^the  bandmaster,  the  fellow 
who's  taking  these  women  about  and  our  Schomberg. 
Signer  Zangiacomo  ran  amuck  in  the  morning,  and  went 
for  our  worthy  friend.  I  tell  you,  they  were  rolling  on  the 
floor  together  on  this  very  verandah,  after  chasing  each 
other  all  over  the  house,  doors  slamming,  women  scream- 
ing, seventeen  of  them,  in  the  dining-room ;  Chinamen  up 
the  trees — Hey,  John  !  You  climb  tree  to  see  the  fight,  eh  ?" 

The  boy,  almond-eyed  and  impassive,  emitted  a  scornful 
grunt,  finished  wiping  the  table,  and  withdrew. 


VICTORY  47 

"That's  what  it  was — a  real,  go-as-you-please  scrap. 
And  Zangiacomo  began  it.  Oh,  here's  Schomberg.  Say, 
Schomberg,  didn't  he  fly  at  you,  when  the  girl  was  missed, 
because  it  was  you  who  insisted  that  the  artists  should  go 
about  the  audience  during  the  interval?" 

Schomberg  had  reappeared  in  the  doorway.  He  ad- 
vanced. His  bearing  was  stately,  but  his  nostrils  were 
extraordinarily  expanded,  and  he  controlled  his  voice  with 
apparent  effort. 

"Certainly.  That  was  only  business.  I  quoted  him 
special  terms  and  all  for  your  sake,  gentlemen.  I  was 
thinking  of  my  regular  customers.  There's  nothing  to  do 
in  the  evenings  in  this  town.  I  think,  gentlemen,  you  were 
all  pleased  at  the  opportunity  of  hearing  a  little  good 
music;  and  where's  the  harm  of  offering  a  grenadine,  or 
what  not,  to  a  lady  artist  ?  But  that  fellow — ^that  Swede — 
he  got  round  the  girl.  He  got  round  all  the  people  out  here. 
I've  been  watching  him  for  years.  You  remember  how  he 
got  round  Morrison." 

He  changed  front  abruptly,  as  if  on  parade,  and 
marched  off.  The  customers  at  the  table  exchanged  glances 
silently.  Davidson's  attitude  was  that  of  a  spectator. 
Schomberg's  moody  pacing  of  the  billiard-room  could  be 
heard  on  the  verandah. 

"And  the  funniest  part  is,"  resumed  the  man  who  had 
been  speaking  before — an  English  clerk  in  a  Dutch  house 
— "the  funniest  part  is  that  before  nine  o'clock  that  same 
morning  those  two  were  driving  together  in  a  gharry  down 
to  the  port,  to  look  for  Heyst  and  the  girl.  I  saw  them 
rushing  around  making  inquiries.  I  don't  know  what  they 
would  have  done  to  the  girl,  but  they  seemed  quite  ready 
to  fall  upon  your  Heyst,  Davidson,  and  kill  him  on  the 
quay." 

He  had  never,  he  said,  seen  anything  so  queer.  Those 
two  investigators  working  feverishly  to  the  same  end 
were  glaring  at  each  other  with  surprising  ferocity.  Ir 


48  VICTORY 

hatred  and  mistrust  they  entered  a  steam-launch,  and 
went  flying  from  ship  to  ship  all  over  the  harbour,  caus- 
ing no  end  of  sensation.  The  captains  of  vessels,  coming 
on  shore  later  in  the  day,  brought  tales  of  a  strange  in- 
vasion, and  wanted  to  know  who  were  the  two  offensive 
lunatics  in  a  steam-launch,  apparently  after  a  man  and 
a  girl,  and  telling  a  story  of  which  one  could  make  neither 
head  nor  tail.  Their  reception  by  the  roadstead  was  gen- 
erally unsympathetic,  even  to  the  point  of  the  mate  of  an 
American  ship  bundling  them  out  over  the  rail  with  un- 
seemly precipitation. 

Meantime  Heyst  and  the  girl  were  a  good  few  miles 
away,  having  gone  in  the  night  on  board  one  of  the 
Tesman  schooners  bound  to  the  eastward.  This  was  known 
afterward  from  the  Javanese  boatmen  whom  Heyst  hired 
for  the  purpose  at  three  o'clock  in  the  morning.  The 
Tesman  schooner  had  sailed  at  daylight  with  the  usual 
land  breeze,  and  was  probably  still  in  sight  in  the  offing 
at  the  time.  However,  the  two  pursuers  after  their  experi- 
ence with  the  American  mate  made  for  the  shore.  On 
landing,  they  had  another  violent  row  in  the  German 
language.  But  there  was  no  second  fight ;  and  finally,  with 
looks  of  fierce  animosity,  they  got  together  into  a  gharry — 
obviously  with  the  frugal  view  of  sharing  expenses — and 
drove  away,  leaving  an  astonished  little  crowd  of  Euro- 
peans and  natives  on  the  quay. 

After  hearing  this  wondrous  tale,  Davidson  went  away 
from  the  hotel  verandah,  which  was  filling  with  Schom- 
berg's  regular  customers.  Heyst's  escapade  was  the  general 
topic  of  conversation.  Never  before  had  that  unaccount- 
able individual  been  the  cause  of  so  much  gossip,  he 
judged.  No !  Not  even  in  the  beginnings  of  the  Tropical 
Belt  Coal  Company  when  becoming  for  a  moment  a  public 
character  he  was  the  object  of  silly  criticism  and  unintelli- 
gent envy  for  every  vagabond  and  adventurer  in  the  islands.    , 


VICTORY  4^ 

Davidson  concluded  that  people  liked  to  discuss  that  sort 
of  scandal  better  than  any  other. 

I  asked  him  if  he  believed  that  this  was  such  a  great 
scandal  after  all. 

"Heavens,  no !"  said  that  excellent  man  who,  himself, 
was  incapable  of  any  impropriety  of  conduct.  "But  it 
isn*t  a  thing  I  would  have  done  myself ;  I  mean  even  if 
I  had  not  been  married." 

There  was  no  implied  condemnation  in  the  statement; 
rather  something  like  regret.  Davidson  shared  my  sus- 
picion that  this  was  in  its  essence  the  rescue  of  a  dis- 
tressed human  being.  Not  that  we  were  two  romantics, 
tingeing  the  world  to  the  hue  of  our  temperament,  but 
that  both  of  us  had  been  acute  enough  to  discover  a 
long  time  ago  that  Heyst  was. 

"I  shouldn't  have  had  the  pluck, '*  he  continued.  "I  see 
a  thing  all  round,  as  it  were;  but  Heyst  doesn't,  or  else 
he  would  have  been  scared.  You  don't  take  a  woman  into 
a  desert  jungle  without  being  made  sorry  for  it  sooner 
or  later,  in  one  way  or  another;  and  Heyst  being  a  gentle- 
man only  makes  it  worse." 


VI 

We  said  no  more  about  Heyst  on  that  occasion,  and 
it  so  happened  that  I  did  not  meet  Davidson  again  for 
some  three  months.  When  we  did  come  together,  almost 
the  first  thing  he  said  to  me  was  : 

"Tve  seen  him/* 

Before  I  could  exclaim,  he  assured  me  that  he  had  taken 
no  liberty,  that  he  had  not  intruded.  He  was  called  in. 
Otherwise  he  would  not  have  dreamed  of  breaking  in 
upon  Hevst's  privacy. 

*'I  am  certain  you  wouldn't,"  I  assured  him,  conceal- 
ing my  amusement  at  his  wonderful  delicacy.  He  was  the 
most  delicate  man  that  ever  took  a  small  steamer  to  and 
fro  amongst  the  islands.  But  his  humanity,  which  was  not 
less  strong  and  praiseworthy,  had  induced  him  to  take 
his  steamer  past  Samburan  wharf  (at  an  average  distance 
of  a  mile)  every  twenty-three  days — exactly.  Davidson 
was  delicate,  humane  and  regular. 

*'Heyst  called  you  in?"  I  asked,  interested. 

Yes,  Heyst  had  called  him  in  as  he  was  going  by  on 
his  usual  date.  Davidson  was  examining  the  shore  through 
his  glasses  with  his  unwearied  and  punctual  humanity  as 
he  steamed  past  Samburan. 

"I  saw  a  man  in  white.  It  could  only  have  been  Heyst. 
He  had  fastened  some  sort  of  enormous  flag  to  a  bamboo 
pole,  and  was  waving  it  at  the  end  of  the  old  wharf.'* 

Davidson  didn't  like  to  take  his  steamer  alongside — 
for  fear  of  being  indiscreet,  I  suppose;  but  he  steered 
close  inshore,  stopped  his  engines,  and  lowered  a  boat. 

50 


VICTORY  51 

He  went  himself  in  that  boat,  which  was  manned,  of 
course,  by  his  Malay  seamen. 

Heyst,  when  he  saw  the  boat  pulling  towards  him, 
dropped  his  signalling-pole;  and  when  Davidson  arrived, 
he  was  kneeling  down  engaged  busily  in  unfastening  the 
flag  from  it. 

"Was  there  anything  wrong?''  I  inquired,  Davidson 
having  paused  in  his  narrative  and  my  curiosity  being 
naturally  aroused.  You  must  remember  that  Heyst  as  the 
Archipelago  knew  him  was  not — what  shall  I  say — was 
not  a  signalling  sort  of  man. 

"The  very  words  that  came  out  of  my  mouth,*'  said 
Davidson,  "before  I  laid  the  boat  against  the  piles.  I  could 
not  help  it.'' 

Heyst  got  up  from  his  knees  and  began  carefully  folding 
up  the  flag  thing,  which  struck  Davidson  as  having  the 
dimensions  of  a  blanket. 

"No,  nothing  wrong,"  he  cried.  His  white  teeth  flashed 
agreeably  below  the  coppery  horizontal  bar  of  his  long 
moustaches. 

I  don't  know  whether  it  was  his  delicacy  or  his  obesity 
which  prevented  Davidson  from  clambering  upon  the 
wharf.  He  stood  up  in  the  boat,  and,  above  him,  Heyst 
stooped  low  with  urbane  smiles,  thanking  him  and  apolo- 
gizing for  the  liberty,  exactly  in  his  usual  manner.  David- 
son had  expected  some  change  in  the  man,  but  there  was 
none.  Nothing  in  him  betrayed  the  momentous  fact  that 
within  that  jungle  there  was  a  girl,  a  performer  in  a  ladies' 
orchestra,  whom  he  had  carried  straight  off  the  concert 
platform  into  the  wilderness.  He  was  not  ashamed  or 
defiant  or  abashed  about  it.  He  might  have  been  a  shade 
confidential  when  addressing  Davidson.  And  his  words 
were  enigmatical. 

"I  took  this  course  of  signalling  to  you,"  he  said  to 
Davidson,  "because  to  preserve  appearances  might  be  of 
the  utmost  importance.   Not  to  me,  of   course.   I  don't 


52  VICTORY 

care  what  people  may  say,  and  of  course  no  one  can  hurt 
me.  I  suppose  I  have  done  a  certain  amount  of  harm, 
since  I  allowed  myself  to  be  tempted  into  action.  It  seemed 
innocent  enough,  but  all  action  is  bound  to  be  harmful. 
It  is  devilish.  That  is  why  this  world  is  evil  upon  the 
whole.  But  I  have  done  with  it !  I  shall  never  lift  a  little 
finger  again.  At  one  time  I  thought  that  intelligent  ob- 
servation of  facts  was  the  best  way  of  cheating  the  time 
which  is  allotted  to  us  whether,  we  want  it  or  not,  but 
now  I  have  done  with  observation,  too." 

Imagine  poor,  simple  Davidson  being  addressed  in 
such  terms  alongside  an  abandoned,  decaying  wharf  jut- 
ting out  of  tropical  bush.  He  had  never  heard  anybody 
speak  like  this  before ;  certainly  not  Heyst,  whose  con- 
versation was  concise,  polite,  with  a  faint  ring  of  playful- 
ness in  the  cultivated  tones  of  his  voice. 

"He's  gone  mad,"  Davidson  thought  to  himself. 

But,  looking  at  the  physiognomy  above  him  on  the 
wharf,  he  was  obliged  to  dismiss  the  notion  of  common, 
crude  lunacy.  It  was  truly  most  unusual  talk.  Then  he 
remembered — in  his  surprise  he  had  lost  sight  of  it — that 
Heyst  now  had  a  girl  there.  This  bizarre  discourse  was 
probably  the  effect  of  the  girl.  Davidson  shook  off  the  ab- 
surd feeling,  and  asked,  wishing  to  make  clear  his  friend- 
liness, and  not  knowing  what  else  to  say : 

"You  haven't  run  short  of  stores  or  anything  like 
that?" 

Heyst  smiled  and  shook  his  head. 

"No,  no.  Nothing  of  the  kind.  We  are  fairly  well  off 
here.  Thanks,  all  the  same.  If  I  have  taken  the  liberty  to 
detain  you,  it  is  not  from  any  uneasiness  for  myself  and 
my — companion.  The  person  I  was  thinking  of  when 
I  made  up  my  mind  to  invoke  your  assistance  is  Mrs. 
Schomberg." 

"I  have  talked  with  her,*'  interjected  Davidson. 


VICTORY  53 

'Oh !  You  ?  Yes,  I  hoped  she  would  find  means  to- 


'But  she  didn't  tell  me  much,"  interrupted  Davidson, 
who  was  not  averse  from  hearing  something — he  hardly 
knew  what. 

"H'm — yes.  But  that  note  of  mine?  Yes?  She  found 
an  opportunity  to  give  it  to  you?  That's  good,  very 
good.  She's  more  resourceful  than  one  would  give  her 
credit  for." 

"Women  often  are,"  remarked  Davidson.  The  strange- 
ness from  which  he  had  suffered,  merely  because  his  inter- 
locutor had  carried  off  a  girl,  wore  off  as  the  minutes 
went  by.  ''There's  a  lot  of  unexpectedness  about  women," 
he  generalized  with  a  didactic  aim  which  seemed  to  miss 
its  mark ;  for  the  next  thing  Heyst  said  was : 

"This  is  Mrs.  Schomberg's  shawl."  He  touched  the 
stuff  hanging  over  his  arm.  "An  Indian  thing,  I  believe," 
he  added,  glancing  at  his  arm  sideways. 

"It  isn't  of  particular  value,"  said  Davidson  truthfully. 

"Very  likely.  The  point  is  that  it  belongs  to  Schomberg's 
wife.  That  Schomberg  seems  to  be  an  unconscionable 
ruffian — don't  you  think  so?" 

Davidson  smiled  faintly. 

"We  out  here  have  got  used  to  him,"  he  said,  as  if  ex- 
cusing a  universal  and  guilty  toleration  of  a  manifest 
nuisance.  "I'd  hardly  call  him  that.  I  only  know  him  as 
a  hotel-keeper."  ^ 

"I  never  knew  him  even  as  that — ^not  till  this  time, 
when  you  were  so  obliging  as  to  take  me  to  Sourabaya. 
I  went  to  stay  there  from  economy.  The  Netherlands 
House  is  very  expensive,  and  they  expect  you  to  bring 
your  own  servant  with  you.  It's  a  nuisance." 

"Of  course,  of  course,"  protested  Davidson  hastily. 

After  a  short  silence  Heyst  returned  to  the  matter  of 
the  shawl.  He  wanted  to  send  it  back  to  Mrs.  Schomberg. 
He  said  that  it  might  be  very  awkward  for  her  if  she 


54  VICTORY 

were  unable,  if  asked,  to  produce  it.  This  had  given  him, 
Heyst,  much  uneasiness.  She  was  terrified  of  Schom- 
berg.  Apparently  she  had  reason  to  be. 

Davidson  had  remarked  that,  too.  Which  did  not  pre- 
vent her,  he  pointed  out,  from  making  a  fool  of  him,  in 
a  way,  for  the  sake  of  a  stranger. 

"Oh !  You  know !"  said  Heyst.  "Yes,  she  helped  me — 
us." 

"She  told  me  so.  I  had  quite  a  talk  with  her,"  Davidson 
informed  him.  "Fancy  any  one  having  a  talk  with  Mrs. 
Schomberg!  If  I  were  to  tell  the  fellows  they  wouldn't 
believe  me.  How  did  you  get  round  her,  Heyst  ?  How  did 
you  think  of  it?  Why,  she  looks  too  stupid  to  understand 
human  speech  and  too  scared  to  shoo  a  chicken  away.  Oh, 
the  women,  the  women !  You  don't  know  what  there  may 
be  in  the  quietest  of  them." 

"She  was  engaged  in  the  task  of  defending  her  position 
in  life,"  said  Heyst.  "It's  a  very  respectable  task." 

"Is  that  it?  I  had  some  idea  it  was  that,"  confessed 
Davidson. 

He  then  imparted  to  Heyst  the  story  of  the  violent 
proceedings  following  on  the  discovery  of  his  flight. 
Heyst's  polite  attention  to  the  tale  took  on  a  sombre  cast ; 
but  he  manifested  no  surprise,  and  offered  no  comment. 
When  Davidson  had  finished  he  handed  down  the  shawl 
into  the  boat,  and  Davidson  promised  to  do  his  best  to 
return  it  to  Mrs.  Schomberg  in  some  secret  fashion.  Heyst 
expressed  his  thanks  in  a  few  simple  words,  set  off  by 
his  manner  of  finished  courtesy.  Davidson  prepared  to 
depart.  They  were  not  looking  at  each  other.  Suddenly 
Heyst  spoke: 

"You  understand  that  this  was  a  case  of  odious  per- 
secution, don't  you  ?  I  became  aware  of  it  and " 

It  was  a  view  which  the  sympathetic  Davidson  was 
capable  of  appreciating. 

"I    am   not    surprised   to   hear   it,"   he    said    placidly. 


VICTORY  55 

"Odious  enough,  I  dare  say.  And  you,  of  course — ^not 
being  a  married  man — were  free  to  step  in.  Ah,  well !" 

He  sat  down  in  the  stern-sheets,  and  already  had  the 
steering  lines  in  his  hands  when  Heyst  observed  abruptly : 

"The  world  is  a  bad  dog.  It  will  bite  you  if  you  give 
it  a  chance ;  but  I  think  that  here  we  can  safely  defy  the 
fates.'' 

When  relating  all  this  to  me,  Davidson's  only  comment 
was: 

"Funny  notion  of  defying  the  fates — ^to  take  a  woman 
in  tow!" 


VII 

Some  considerable  time  afterward — we  did  not  meet 
very  often — I  asked  Davidson  how  he  had  managed  about 
the  shawl  and  heard  that  he  had  tackled  his  mission  in  a 
direct  way,  and  had  found  it  easy  enough.  At  the  very 
first  call  he  made  in  Samarang  he  rolled  the  shawl  as 
tightly  as  he  could  into  the  smallest  possible  brown  paper 
parcel,  which  he  carried  ashore  with  him.  His  business  in 
the  town  being  transacted,  he  got  into  a  gharry  with  the 
parcel  and  drove  to  the  hotel.  With  his  previous  experi- 
ence, he  timed  his  arrival  accurately  for  the  hour  of 
Schomberg's  siesta.  Finding  the  place  empty  as  on  the 
former  occasion,  he  marched  into  the  billiard-room,  took  a 
seat  at  the  back,  near  the  sort  of  dais  which  Mrs.  Schom- 
berg  would  in  due  course  come  to  occupy,  and  broke  the 
slumbering  silence  of  the  house  by  thumping  a  bell  vigor- 
ously. Of  course  a  Chinaman  appeared  promptly.  David- 
son ordered  a  drink  and  sat  tight. 

"1  would  have  ordered  twenty  drinks  one  after  an- 
other, if  necessary,"  he  said — Davidson's  a  very  abstemi- 
ous man — "rather  than  take  that  parcel  out  of  the  house 
again.  Couldn't  leave  it  in  a  corner  without  letting  the 
woman  know  it  was  there.  It  might  have  turned  out  worse 
for  her  than  not  bringing  the  thing  back  at  all." 

And  so  he  waited,  ringing  the  bell  again  and  again,  and 
swallowing  two  or  three  iced  drinks  which  he  did  not 
want.  Presently,  as  he  hoped  it  would  happen,  Mrs. 
Schomberg  came  in,  silk  dress,  long  neck,  ringlets,  scared 
eyes,  and  silly  grin — all  complete.  Probably  that  lazy  beast 
had  sent  her  out  to  see  who  was  the  thirsty  customer 

56 


VICTORY  57 

waking  up  the  echoes  of  the  house  at  this  quiet  hour.  Bow, 
nod — and  she  clambered  up  to  her  post  behind  the  raised 
counter,  looking  so  helpless,  so  inane,  as  she  sat  there,  that 
if  it  hadn't  been  for  the  parcel,  Davidson  declared,  he 
would  have  thought  he  had  merely  dreamed  of  all  that  had 
passed  between  them.  He  ordered  another  drink,  to  get  the 
Chinaman  out  of  the  room,  and  then  seized  the  parcel, 
which  was  reposing  on  a  chair  near  him,  and  with  no  more 
than  a  mutter — "This  is  something  of  yours" — ^he  rammed 
it  swiftly  into  a  recess  in  the  counter,  at  her  feet.  There! 
The  rest  was  her  affair.  And  just  in  time,  too.  Schom- 
berg  turned  up,  yawning  affectedly,  almost  before  David- 
son h^d  regained  his  seat.  He  cast  about  suspicious  and 
irate  glances.  An  invincible  placidity  of  expression  helped 
Davidson  wonderfully  at  the  moment,  and  the  other,  of 
course,  could  have  no  grounds  for  the  slightest  suspicion 
of  any  sort  of  understanding  between  his  wife  and  this 
customer. 

As  to  Mrs.  Schomberg,  she  sat  there  like  a  joss.  David- 
son was  lost  in  admiration.  He  believed,  now,  that  the 
woman  had  been  putting  it  on  for  years.  She  never  even 
wijtiked.  It  was  immense !  The  insight  he  had  obtained 
almost  frightened  him;  he  couldn't  get  over  his  wonder 
at  knowing  more  of  the  real  Mrs.  Schomberg  than  any- 
body in  the  Islands,  including  Schomberg  himself.  She 
was  a  miracle  of  dissimulation.  No  wonder  Heyst  got 
the  girl  away  from  under  two  men's  noses,  if  he  had  her 
to  help  with  the  job  ! 

The  greatest  wonder,  after  all,  was  Heyst  getting  mixed 
up  with  petticoats.  The  fellow's  life  had  been  open  to  us 
for  years  and  nothing  could  have  been  more  detached 
from  feminine  associations.  Except  that  he  stood  drinks 
to  people  on  suitable  occasions,  like  any  other  man,  this 
observer  of  facts  seemed  to  have  no  connection  with 
earthly  affairs  and  passions.  The  very  courtesy  of  his 
manner,  the  flavour  of  playfulness  in  the  voice  set  him 


58  VICTORY 

apart.  He  was  like  a  feather  floating  lightly  in  the  work-a- 
day  atmosphere  which  was  the  breath  of  our  nostrils.  For 
this  reason  whenever  this  looker-on  took  contact  with 
things  he  attracted  attention.  First,  it  was  the  Morrison 
partnership  of  mystery ;  then  came  the  great  sensation  of 
the  Tropical  Belt  Coal  where  indeed  varied  interests  were 
involved :  a  real  business  matter.  And  then  came  this  elope- 
ment, this  incongruous  phenomenon  of  self-assertion,  the 
greatest  wonder  of  all,  astonishing  and  amusing. 

Davidson  admitted  to  me  that  the  hubbub  was  sub- 
siding; and  the  affair  would  have  been  already  forgotten, 
perhaps,  if  that  ass  Schomberg  had  not  kept  on  gnashing 
his  teeth  publicly  about  it.  It  was  really  provoking  that 
Davidson  should  not  be  able  to  give  one  some  idea  of  the 
girl.  Was  she  pretty?  He  didn't  know.  He  had  stayed 
the  whole  afternoon  in  Schomberg's  hotel,  mainly  for  the 
purpose  of  finding  out  something  about  her.  But  the  story 
was  growing  stale.  The  parties  at  the  tables  on  the  veran- 
dah had  other,  fresher,  events  to  talk  about  and  Davidson 
shrank  from  making  direct  inquiries.  He  sat  placidly  there, 
content  to  be  disregarded  and  hoping  for  some  chance 
word  to  turn  up.  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  the  good  felk)w 
hadn't  been  dozing.  It's  difficult  to  give  you  an  adequate 
idea  of  Davidson's  placidity. 

Presently  Schomberg,  wandering  about,  joined  a  party 
that  had  taken  the  table  next  to  Davidson's. 

"A  man  like  that  Swede,  gentlemen,  is  a  public  danger," 
he  began.  "I  remember  him  for  years.  I  won't  say  any- 
thing of  his  spying — w^ell,  he  used  to  say  himself  he  was 
looking  for  out-of-the-way  facts,  and  what  is  that  if  not 
spying?  He  was  spying  into  everybody's  business.  He  got 
hold  of  Captain  Morrison,  squeezed  him  dry,  like  you 
would  an  orange,  and  scared  him  off  to  Europe  to  die 
there.  Everybody  knows  that  Captain  Morrison  had  a 
weak  chest.  Robbed  first  and  murdered  afterward !  I  don't 
mince  words — not  I.  Next  he  gets  up  that  swindle  of  the 


VICTORY  59 

Belt  Coal.  You  all  know  about  it.  And  now,  after  lining 
his  pockets  with  other  people's  money,  he  kidnaps  a  white 
girl  belonging  to  an  orchestra  which  is  performing  in  my 
public  room  for  the  benefit  of  my  patrons,  and  goes  off 
to  live  like  a  prince  on  that  island,  where  nobody  can  get 
at  him.  A  dam'  silly  girl   .  .   .   It's  disgusting — ^tf ui !" 

He  spat.  He  choked  with  rage — for  he  saw  visions, 
no  doubt.  He  jumped  up  from  his  chair,  and  went  away  to 
flee  from  them — perhaps.  He  went  into  the  room  where 
Mrs.  Schomberg  sat.  Her  aspect  could  not  have  been  very 
soothing  to  the  sort  of  torment  from  which  he  was  suffer- 
ing. 

Davidson  did  not  feel  called  upon  to  defend  Heyst. 
His  proceeding  was  to  enter  into  conversation  with  one 
and  another,  casually,  and  showing  no  particular  knowl- 
edge of  the  affair,  in  order  to  discover  something  about 
the  girl.  Was  she  anything  out  ..of  the  way?  Was  she 
pretty?  She  couldn't  have  been  markedly  so.  She  had 
not  attracted  special  notice.  She  was  young — on  that 
everybody  agreed.  The  English  clerk  of  Tesmans  re- 
membered that  she  had  a  sallow  face.  He  was  respectable 
and  highly  proper.  He  was  not  the  sort  to  associate  with 
such  people.  Most  of  these  women  were  fairly  battered 
specimens.  Schomberg  had  them  housed  in  what  he  called 
the  Pavilion,  in  the  grounds,  where  they  were  hard  at  it 
mending  and  washing  their  white  dresses,  and  could  be 
seen  hanging  them  out  to  dry  between  the  trees,  like  a 
lot  of  washerwomen.  They  looked  very  much  like  middle- 
aged  washerwomen  on  the  platform,  too.  But  the  girl  had 
been  living  in  the  main  building  along  with  the  boss,  the 
director,  the  fellow  with  the  black  beard,  and  a  hard- 
bitten, oldish  woman  who  took  the  piano  and  was  under- 
stood to  be  the  fellow's  wife. 

This  was  not  a  very  satisfactory  result.  Davidson 
stayed  on,  and  even  joined  the  table  d'hote  dinner,  without 
gleaning  any  more  information.  He  was  resigned. 


6o  VICTORY 

"I  suppose,"  he  wheezed  placidly,  "I  am  bound  to  see 
her  some  day." 

He  meant  to  take  the  Samburan  channel  every  trip, 
as  before,  of  course. 

"Yes,"  I  said.  "No  doubt  you  will.  Some  day  Heyst 
will  be  signalling  to  you  again ;  and  I  wonder  what  it  will 
be  for." 

Davidson  made  no  reply.  He  had  his  own  ideas  about 
that,  and  his  silence  concealed  a  good  deal  of  thought. 
We  spoke  no  more  of  Heyst's  girl.  Before  we  separated, 
he  gave  me  a  piece  of  unrelated  observation. 

"It's  funny,"  he  said,  "but  I  fancy  there's  some  gam- 
bling going  on  in  the  evening  at  Schomberg's  place,  on 
the  quiet.  I've  noticed  men  strolling  away  in  twos  and 
threes  towards  that  hall  where  the  orchestra  used  to  play. 
The  windows  must  be  specially  well  shuttered,  because  I 
could  not  spy  the  smallest  gleam  of  light  from  that  direc- 
tion; but  I  can't  believe  that  those  beggars  would  go  in 
there  only  to  sit  and  think  of  their  sins  in  the  dark." 

"That's  strange.  It's  incredible  that  Schomberg  should 
risk  that  sort  of  thing,"  I  said. 


PART   II 


6i 


As  WE  know,  Hey  St  had  gone  to  stay  in  Schomberg's 
hotel  in  complete  ignorance  that  his  person  was  odious 
to  that  worthy.  When  he  arrived,  Zangiacomo's  Ladies' 
Orchestra  had  been  established  there  for  some  time. 

The  business  which  had  called  him  out  from  his  se- 
clusion in  his  lost  corner  of  the  Eastern  seas  was  with  the 
Tesmans,  and  it  had  something  to  do  with  money.  He 
transacted  it  quickly,  and  then  found  himself  with  nothing 
to  do  while  he  awaited  Davidson,  who  was  to  take  him 
back  to  his  solitude ;  for  back  to  his  solitude  Heyst  meant 
to  go.  He  whom  we  used  to  refer  to  as  the  Enchanted 
Heyst  was  suffering  from  thorough  disenchantment.  Not 
with  the  islands,  however.  The  Archipelago  has  a  lasting 
fascination.  It  is  not  easy  to  shake  off  the  spell  of  island 
life.  Heyst  was  disenchanted  with  life  as  a  whole.  His 
scornful  temperament,  beguiled  into  action,  suffered  from 
failure  in  a  subtle  way  unknown  to  men  accustomed  to 
grapple  with  the  realities  of  common  human  enterprise. 
It  was  like  the  gnawing  pain  of  useless  apostasy,  a  sort 
of  shame  before  his  own  betrayed  nature ;  and,  in  addition, 
he  also  suffered  from  plain,  downright  remorse.  He 
deemed  himself  guilty  of  Morrison's  death.  A  rather 
absurd  feeling,  since  no  one  could  possibly  have  foreseen 
the  horrors  of  the  cold,  wet  summer  lying  in  wait  for 
poor  Morrison  at  home. 

It  was  not  in  Heyst's  character  to  turn  morose;  but 
his  mental  state  was  not  compatible  with  a  sociable  mood. 
He  spent  his  evenings  sitting  apart  on  the  verandah  of 
Schomberg's  hotel.   The  lamentations   of   strmg  instru- 


64  VICTORY 

ments  issued  from  the  building  in  the  hotel  compound, 
the  approaches  to  which-  were  decorated  with  Japanese 
paper  lanterns  strung  up  between  the  trunks  of  several  big 
trees.  Scraps  of  tunes  more  or  less  plaintive  reached  his 
ears.  They  pursued  him  even  into  his  bedroom,  which 
opened  into  an  upstairs  verandah.  The  fragmentary  and 
rasping  character  of  these  sounds  made  their  intrusion 
inexpressibly  tedious  in  the  long  run.  Like  most  dreamers, 
to  whom  it  is  given  sometimes  to  hear  the  music  of  the 
spheres,  Heyst,  the  wanderer  of  the  Archipelago,  had  a 
taste  for  silence  which  he  had  been  able  to  gratify  for 
years.  The  islands  are  very  quiet.  One  sees  them  lying 
about,  clothed  in  their  dark  garments  of  leaves,  in  a  great 
hush  of  silver  and  azure,  where  the  sea  without  murmurs 
meets  the  sky  in  a  ring  of  magic  stillness.  A  sort  of 
smiling  somnolence  broods  over  them ;  the  very  voices  of 
their  people  are  soft  and  subdued,  as  if  afraid  to  break 
some  protecting  spell. 

Perhaps  this  was  the  very  spell  which  had  enchanted 
Heyst  in  the  early  days.  For  him,  however,  that  was 
broken.  He  was  no  longer  enchanted,  though  he  was  still 
a  captive  of  the  islands.  He  had  no  intention  to  leave  them 
ever.  Where  could  he  have  gone  to,  after  all  these  years? 
Not  a  single  soul  belonging  to  him  lived  anywhere  on 
earth.  Of  this  fact — ^not  such  a  remote  one,  after  all — he 
had  only  lately  become  aware ;  for  it  is  failure  that  makes 
a  man  enter  into  himself  and  reckon  up  his  resources. 
And  though  he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  retire  from  the 
world  in  hermit  fashion,  yet  he  was  irrationally  moved 
by  this  sense  of  loneliness  which  had  come  to  him  in  the 
hour  of  renunciation.  It  hurt  him.  Nothing  is  more  painful 
than  the  shock  of  sharp  contradictions  that  lacerate  our 
intelligence  and  our  feelings. 

Meantime  Schomberg  watched  Heyst  out  of  the  corner 
of  his  eye.  Towards  the  unconscious  object  of  his  en- 
mity he  preserved  a  distant  Lieutenant-of-the-Reserve  de- 


VICTORY  65 

meanour.  Nudging  certain  of  his  customers  with  his  elbow, 
he  begged  them  to  observe  what  airs  "that  Swede"  was 
giving  himself. 

"I  really  don't  know  why  he  has  come  to  stay  in  my 
house.  This  place  isn't  good  enough  for  him.  I  wish  to 
goodness  he  had  gone  somewhere  else  to  show  off  his 
superiority.  Here  I  have  got  up  this  series  of  concerts  for 
you  gentlemen,  just  to  make  things  a  little  brighter  gen- 
erally; and  do  you  think  he'll  condescend  to  step  in  and 
listen  to  a  piece  or  two  of  an  evening?  Not  he.  I  know 
him  of  old.  There  he  sits  at  the  dark  end  of  the  piazza, 
all  the  evening  long — planning  some  new  swindle,  no 
doubt.  For  twopence  I  would  ask  him  to  go  and  look  for 
quarters  somewhere  else ;  only  one  doesn't  like  to  treat  a 
white  man  like  that  out  in  the  tropics.  I  don't  know  how 
long  he  means  to  stay,  but  I'm  willing  to  bet  a  trifle  that 
he'll  never  work  himself  up  to  the  point  of  spending  the 
fifty  cents  of  entrance  money  for  the  sake  of  a  little  good 
music." 

Nobody  cared  to  bet,  or  the  hotel-keeper  would  have 
lost.  One  evening  Heyst  was  driven  to  desperation  by  the 
rasped,  squeaked,  scraped  snatches  of  tunes  pursuing  him 
even  to  his  hard  couch,  with  a  mattress  as  thin  as  a  pan- 
cake and  a  diaphanous  mosquito  net.  He  descended  among 
the  trees,  where  the  soft  glow  of  Japanese  lanterns  picked 
out  parts  of  their  great  rugged  trunks,  here  and  there, 
in  the  great  mass  of  darkness  under  the  lofty  foliage. 
More  lanterns,  of  the  shape  of  cylindrical  concertinas, 
hanging  in  a  row  from  a  slack  string,  decorated  the  door- 
way of  what  Schomberg  called  grandiloquently  "my 
concert-hall."  In  his  desperate  mood  Heyst  ascended  three 
steps,  lifted  a  calico  curtain,  and  went  in. 

The  uproar  in  that  small,  barn-like  structure,  built  of 
imported  pine  boards,  and  raised  clear  of  the  ground,  was 
simply  stunning.  An  instrumental  uproar,  screaming, 
grunting,  whining,  sobbing,  scraping,  squeaking  some  kind 


66  VICTORY 

of  lively  air;  while  a  grand  piano,  operated  upon  by  a 
bony,  red- faced  woman  with  bad-tempered  nostrils,  rained 
hard  notes  like  hail  through  the  tempest  of  fiddles.  The 
small  platform  was  filled  with  white  muslin  dresses  and 
crimson  sashes  slanting  from  shoulders  provided  with 
bare  arms,  which  sawed  away  without  respite.  Zangiacomo 
conducted.  He  wore  a  white  mess-jacket,  a  black  dress 
waistcoat,  and  white  trousers.  His  longish,  tousled  hair 
and  his  great  beard  were  purple-black.  He  was  horrible. 
The  heat  was  terrific.  There  were  perhaps  thirty  people 
having  drinks  at  several  little  tables.  Heyst,  quite  overcome 
by  the  volume  of  noise,  dropped  into  a  chair.  In  the  quick 
time  of  that  music,  in  the  varied,  piercing  clamour  of  the 
strings,  in  the  movements  of  the  bare  arms,  in  the  low 
dresses,  the  coarse  faces,  the  stony  eyes  of  the  executants, 
there  was  a  suggestion  of  brutality — something  cruel, 
sensual  and  repulsive. 

"This  is  awful!"  Heyst  murmured  to  himself. 

But  there  is  an  unholy  fascination  in  systematic  noise. 
He  did  not  flee  from  it  incontinently,  as  one  might  have 
expected  him  to  do.  He  remained,  astonished  at  himself 
for  remaining,  since  nothing  could  have  been  more  repul- 
sive to  his  tastes,  more  painful  to  his  senses,  and,  so  to 
speak,  more  contrary  to  his  genius,  than  this  rude  exhibi- 
tion of  vigour.  The  Zangiacomo  band  was  not  making 
music;  it  was  simply  murdering  silence  with  a  vulgar, 
ferocious  energy.  One  felt  as  if  witnessing  a  deed  of  vio- 
lence; and  that  impression  was  so  strong  that  it  seemed 
marvellous  to  see  the  people  sitting  so  quietly  on  their 
chairs,  drinking  so  calmly  out  of  their  glasses,  and  giving 
no  signs  of  distress,  anger  or  fear.  Heyst  averted  his  gaze 
from  the  unnatural  spectacle  of  their  indifference. 

When  the  piece  of  music  came  to  an  end,  the  relief 
was  so  great  that  he  felt  slightly  dizzy,  as  if  a  chasm  of 
silence  had  yawned  at  his  feet.  When  he  raised  his  eyes, 
the  audience,  most  perversely,   was  exhibiting  signs  of 


VICTORY  67 

animation  and  interest  in  their  faces,  and  the  women  in 
white  musHn  dresses  were  coming  down  in  pairs  from 
the  platform  into  the  body  of  Schomberg's  "concert-hall." 
They  dispersed  themselves  all  over  the  place.  The  male 
creature  with  the  hooked  nose  and  purple-black  beard  dis- 
appeared somewhere.  This  was  the  interval  during  which, 
as  the  astute  Schomberg  had  stipulated,  the  members  of 
the  orchestra  were  encouraged  to  favour  the  members  of 
the  audience  with  their  company — ^that  is,  such  members 
as  seemed  inclined  to  fraternize  with  the  arts  in  a  f amihar 
and  generous  manner ;  the  symbol  of  familiarity  and  gen- 
erosity consisting  in  offers  of  refreshment. 

The  procedure  struck  Heyst  as  highly  incorrect.  How- 
ever, the  impropriety  of  Schomberg's  ingenious  scheme 
was  defeated  by  the  circumstances  that  most  of  the  women 
were  no  longer  young,  and  that  none  of  them  had  ever 
been  beautiful.  Their  more  or  less  worn  cheeks  were 
slightly  rouged;  but  apart  from  that  fact,  which  might 
have  been  simply  a  matter  of  routine,  they  did  not  seem 
to  take  the  success  of  the  scheme  unduly  to  heart.  The 
impulse  to  fraternize  with  the  arts  being  obviously  weak  in 
the  audience,  some  of  the  musicians  sat  down  listlessly  at 
unoccupied  tables,  while  others  went  on  perambulating 
the  central  passage  arm  in  arm,  glad  enough,  no  doubt, 
to  stretch  their  legs  while  resting  their  arms.  Their  crim- 
son sashes  gave  a  factitious  touch  of  gaiety  to  the  smoky 
atmosphere  of  the  concert-hall;  and  Heyst  felt  a  sudden 
pity  for  these  beings,  exploited,  hopeless,  devoid  of  charm, 
and  grace,  whose  fate  of  cheerless  dependence  invested 
their  coarse  and  joyless  features  with  a  touch  of  pathos. 

Heyst  was  temperamentally  sympathetic.  To  have  them 
passing  and  repassing  close  to  his  little  table  was  painful 
to  him.  He  was  preparing  to  rise  and  go  out  when  he 
noticed  that  two  white  muslin  dresses  and  crimson  sashes 
had  not  yet  left  the  platform.  One  of  these  dresses  con- 
cealed the  raw-boned  frame  of  the  woman  with  the  bad- 


68  VICTORY 

tempered  curve  to  her  nostrils.  She  was  no  less  a  person- 
age than  Mrs.  Zangiacomo.  She  had  left  the  piano,  and, 
with  her  back  to  the  hall,  was  preparing  the  parts  for  the 
second  half  of  the  concert,  with  a  brusque,  impatient 
action  of  her  ugly  elbows.  This  task  done,  she  turned,  and, 
perceiving  the  other  white  muslin  dress  motionless  on  a 
chair  in  the  second  row,  she  strode  towards  it  between  the 
music-stands  with  an  aggressive  and  masterful  gait.  On 
the  lap  of  that  dress  there  lay,  unclasped  and  idle,  a  pair 
of  small  hands,  not  very  white,  attached  to  well-formed 
arms.  The  next  detail  Heyst  was  led  to  observe  was  the 
arrangement  of  the  hair — ^two  thick  brown  tresses  rolled 
round  an  attractively  shaped  head. 

''A  girl,  by  Jove!"  he  exclaimed  mentally. 

It  was  evident  that  she  was  a  girl.  It  was  evident  in 
the  outline  of  the  shoulders,  in  the  slender  white  bust 
springing  up,  barred  slantwise  by  the  crimson  sash,  from 
the  bell-shaped  spread  of  muslin  skirt  hiding  the  chair 
on  which  she  sat  averted  a  little  from  the  body  of  the  hall. 
Her  feet,  in  low  white  shoes,  were  crossed  prettily. 

She  had  captured  Heyst's  awakened  faculty  of  ob- 
servation ;  he  had  the  sensation  of  a  new  experience.  That 
was  because  his  faculty  of  observation  had  never  before 
been  captured  by  any  feminine  creature  in  that  marked 
and  exclusive  fashion.  He  looked  at  her  anxiously,  as  no 
man  ever  looks  at  another  man;  and  he  positively  forgot 
where  he  was.  He  had  lost  touch  with  his  surroundings. 
The  big  woman,  advancing,  concealed  the  girl  from  his 
sight  for  a  moment.  She  bent  over  the  seated  youthful 
figure,  in  passing  it  very  close,  as  if  to  drop  a  word  into 
its  ear.  Her  lips  did  certainly  move.  But  what  sort  of 
word  could  it  have  been  to  make  the  girl  jump  up  so 
swiftly?  Heyst,  at  his  table,  was  surprised  into  a  sympa- 
thetic start.  He  glanced  quickly  round.  Nobody  was  look- 
ing towards  the  platform ;  and  when  his  eyes  swept  back 
there  again,  the  girl,  with  the  big  woman  treading  at  her 


VICTORY  69 

heels,  was  coming  down  the  three  steps  from  the  platform 
to  the  floor  of  the  hall.  There  she  paused,  stumbled  one 
pace  forward,  and  stood  still  again,  while  the  other — ^the 
escort,  the  dragoon,  the  coarse  big  woman  of  the  piano — 
passed  her  roughly,  and,  marching  truculently  down  the 
centre  aisle  between  the  chairs  and  tables,  went  out  to 
rejoin  the  hook-nosed  Zangiacomo  somewhere  outside. 
During  her  extraordinary  transit,  as  if  everything  in  the 
hall  were  dirt  under  her  feet,  her  scornful  eyes  met  the 
upward  glance  of  Heyst,  who  looked  away  at  once  to- 
wards the  girl.  She  had  not  moved.  Her  arms  hung  down ; 
her  eyelids  were  lowered. 

Heyst  laid  down  his  half-smoked  cigar  and  compressed 
his  lips.  Then  he  got  up.  It  was  the  same  sort  of  impulse 
which  years  ago  had  made  him  cross  the  sandy  street  of 
the  abominable  town  of  Delli  in  the  island  of  Timor  and 
accost  Morrison,  practically  a  stranger  to  him  then,  a  man 
in  trouble,  expressively  harassed,  dejected,  lonely. 

It  was  the  same  impulse.  But  he  did  not  recognize  it. 
He  was  not  thinking  of  Morrison  then.  It  may  be  said 
that,  for  the  first  time  since  the  final  abandonment  of 
the  Samburan  coal  mine,  he  had  completely  forgotten  the 
late  Morrison.  It  is  true  that  to  a  certain  extent  he  had 
forgotten  also  where  he  was.  Thus,  unchecked  by  any  sort 
of  self-consciousness,  Heyst  walked  up  the  central  pas- 
sage. 

Several  of  the  women,  by  this  time,  had  found  anchor- 
age here  and  there,  among  the  occupied  tables.  They 
talked  to  the  men,  leaning  on  their  elbows,  and  suggest- 
ing funnily — if  it  hadn't  been  for  the  crimson  sashes — 
in  their  white  dresses  an  assembly  of  middle-aged  brides 
with  free  and  easy  manners  and  hoarse  voices.  The  mur- 
muring noise  of  conversations  carried  on  with  some  spirit 
filled  Schomberg's  concert-room.  Nobody  remarked 
Heyst's  movements;  for  indeed  he  was  not  the  only  man 
on  his  legs  there.  He  had  been  confronting  the  girl  for 


70  VICTORY 

some  time  before  she  became  aware  of  his  presence.  She 
was  looking  down,  very  still,  without  colour,  without 
glances,  without  voice,  without  movement.  It  was  only 
when  Heyst  addressed  her  in  his  courteous  tone  that 
she  raised  her  eyes. 

"Excuse  me,''  he  said  in  English,  "but  that  horrible 
female  has  done  something  to  you.  She  has  pinched  you, 
hasn't  she?  I  am  sure  she  pinched  you  just  now,  when  she 
stood  by  your  chair." 

The  girl  received  this  overture  with  the  wide,  motion- 
less stare  of  profound  astonishment.  Heyst,  vexed  with 
himself,  suspected  that  she  did  not  understand  what  he 
said.  One  could  not  tell  what  nationality  these  women 
were,  except  that  they  were  of  all  sorts.  But  she  was  aston- 
ished almost  more  by  the  near  presence  of  the  man  him- 
self, by  this  largely  bald  head,  by  the  white  brow,  the 
sunburnt  cheeks,  the  long,  horizontal  moustaches  of 
crinkly  bronze  hair,  by  the  kindly  expression  of  the  man's 
blue  eyes  looking  into  her  own.  He  saw  the  stony  amaze- 
ment in  hers  give  way  to  a  momentary  alarm,  which  was 
succeeded  by  an  expression  of  resignation. 

"I  am  sure  she  pinched  your  arm  most  cruelly,"  he 
murmured,  rather  disconcerted  now  at  what  he  had  done. 

It  was  a  great  comfort  to  hear  her  say : 

"It  wouldn't  have  been  the  first  time.  And  suppose  she 
did — what  are  you  going  to  do  about  it  ?" 

"I  don't  know,"  he  said  with  a  faint,  remote  playfulness 
in  his  tone  which  had  not  been  heard  in  it  lately,  and 
which  seemed  to  catch  her  ear  pleasantly.  "I  am  grieved 
to  say  that  I  don't  know.  But  can  I  do  anything?  What 
would  you  wish  me  to  do?  Pray  command  me." 

Again  the  greatest  astonishment  became  visible  in  her 
face;  for  she  now  perceived  how  different  he  was  from 
the  other  men  in  the  room.  He  was  as  different  from  them 
as  she  was  different  from  the  other  members  of  the 
ladies'  orchestra. 


VICTORY  71 

"Command  you?"  she  breathed,  after  a  time,  in  a 
bewildered  tone.  "Who  are  you?''  she  asked  a  Httle  louder. 

"I  am  staying  in  this  hotel  for  a  few  days.  I  just 
dropped  in  casually  here.  This  outrage '' 

"Don't  you  try  to  interfere,'*  she  said  so  earnestly  that 
Heyst  asked,  in  his  faintly  playful  tone : 

"Is  it  your  wish  that  I  should  leave  you?" 

"I  haven't  said  that,"  the  girl  answered.  "She  pinched 
me  because  I  didn't  get  down  here  quick  enough." 

"I  can't  tell  you  how  indignant  I  am,"  said  Heyst.  "But 
since  you  are  down  here  now,"  he  went  on,  with  the  ease 
of  a  man  of  the  world  speaking  to  a  young  lady  in  a 
drawing-room,  "hadn't  we  better  sit  down?" 

She  obeyed  his  inviting  gesture,  and  they  sat  down  on 
the  nearest  chairs.  They  looked  at  each  other  across  a 
little  round  table  with  a  surprised,  open  gaze,  self-con- 
sciousness growing  on  them  so  slowly  that  it  was  a 
long  time  before  they  averted  their  eyes ;  and  very  soon 
they  met  again,  temporarily,  only  to  rebound,  as  it  were. 
At  last  they  steadied  in  contact,  but  by  that  time,  say  some 
fifteen  minutes  from  the  moment  when  they  sat  down,  the 
"interval"  came  to  an  end. 

So  much  for  their  eyes.  As  to  the  conversation,  it  had 
been  perfectly  insignificant,  because  naturally  they  had 
nothing  to  say  to  each  other.  Heyst  had  been  interested 
by  the  girl's  physiognomy.  Its  expression  was  neither 
simple  nor  yet  very  clear.  It  was  not  distinguished— that 
could  not  be  expected — but  the  features  had  more  fine- 
ness than  those  of  any  other  feminine  countenance  he  had 
ever  had  the  opportunity  to  observe  so  closely.  There  was 
in  it  something  indefinably  audacious  and  infinitely  miser- 
able— because  the  temperament  and  the  existence  of  that 
girl  were  reflected  in  it.  But  her  voice !  It  seduced  Heyst 
by  its  amazing  quality.  It  was  a  voice  fit  to  utter  the 
most  exquisite  things,  a  voice  which  would  have  made 
silly  chatter  supportable  and  the  roughest  talk  fascinat- 


72  VICTORY 

ing.  Heyst  drank  in  its  charm  as  one  listens  to  the  tone 
of  some  instrument  without  heeding  the  tune. 

''Do  you  sing  as  well  as  play?*'  he  asked  her  abruptly. 

"Never  sang  a  note  in  my  life/'  she  said,  obviously 
surprised  by  the  irrelevant  question ;  for  they  had  not  been 
discoursing  of  sweet  sounds.  She  was  clearly  unaware  of 
her  voice.  "I  don't  remember  that  I  ever  had  much  reason 
to  sing  since  I  was  little,"  she  added. 

That  inelegant  phrase,  by  the  mere  vibrating,  warm 
nobility  of  sound,  found  its  way  into  Heyst's  heart.  His 
mind,  cool,  alert,  watched  it  sink  there  with  a  sort  of 
vague  concern  at  the  absurdity  of  the  occupation,  till  it 
rested  at  the  bottom,  deep  down,  where  our  unexpressed 
longings  lie. 

"You  are  English,  of  course?"  he  said. 

"What  do  you  think?"  she  answered  in  the  most  charm- 
ing accents.  Then,  as  if  thinking  that  it  was  her  turn  to 
place  a  question:  "Why  do  you  always  smile  when  you 
speak  ?" 

It  was  enough  to  make  any  one  look  grave ;  but  her 
good  faith  was  so  evident  that  Heyst  recovered  himself 
at  once. 

"It's  my  unfortunate  manner,'*  he  said  with  his  delicate, 
polished  playfulness.  "Is  it  very  objectionable  to  you?" 

She  was  very  serious. 

"No.  I  only  noticed  it.  I  haven't  come  across  so  many 
pleasant  people  as  all  that,  in  my  life." 

"It's  certain  that  this  woman  who  plays  the  piano  is 
infinitely  more  disagreeable  than  any  cannibal  I  have 
ever  had  to  do  with." 

"I  believe  you !"  She  shuddered.  "How  did  you  come 
to  have  anything  to  do  with  cannibals?" 

"It  would  be  too  long  a  tale,"  said  Heyst,  with  a  faint 
smile.  Heyst's  smiles  were  rather  melancholy,  and  ac- 
corded badly  with  his  great  moustaches,  under  w^hich  his 
mere  playfulness   lurked  as  comfortably  as   a   shy  bird 


VICTORY  73 

in  its  native  thicket.  "Much  too  long.  How  did  you  get 
amongst  this  lot  here?" 

"Bad  luck,"  she  answered  briefly. 

"No  doubt,  no  doubt,"  Heyst  assented  with  slight  nods. 
Then,  still  indignant  at  the  pinch  which  he  had  divined 
rather  than  actually  seen  inflicted:  "I  say,  couldn't  you 
defend  yourself  somehow?" 

She  had  risen  already.  The  ladies  of  the  orchestra  were 
slowly  regaining  their  places.  Some  were  already  seated, 
idle,  stony-eyed,  before  the  music-stands.  Heyst  was 
standing  up,  too. 

"They  are  too  many  for  me,"  she  said. 

These  few  words  came  out  of  the  common  experience 
of  mankind ;  yet  by  virtue  of  her  voice,  they  thrilled 
Heyst  like  a  revelation.  His  feelings  were  in  a  state  of 
confusion,  but  his  mind  was  clear. 

"That's  bad.  But  it  isn't  actual  ill-usage  that  this  girl 
is  complaining  of,"  he  thought  lucidly  after  she  left  him. 


II 

That  was  how  it  began.  How  it  was  that  it  ended 
as  we  know  it  did  end,  is  not  so  easy  to  state  precisely. 
It  is  very  clear  that  Heyst  was  not  indifferent.  I  won't  say 
to  the  girl,  but  to  the  girl's  fate.  He  was  the  same  man 
who  had  plunged  after  the  submerged  Morrison  whom 
he  hardly  knew  otherwise  than  by  sight  and  through  the 
usual  gossip  of  the  islands.  But  this  was  another  sort  of 
plunge  altogether,  and  likely  to  lead  to  a  very  different 
kind  of  partnership. 

Did  he  reflect  at  all?  Probably.  He  was  sufficiently  re- 
flective. But  if  he  did,  it  was  with  insufficient  knowledge. 
For  there  is  no  evidence  that  he  paused  at  any  time  be- 
tween the  date  of  that  evening  and  the  morning  of  the 
flight.  Truth  to  say,  Heyst  was  not  one  of  those  men  who 
pause  much.  Those  dreamy  spectators  of  the  world's  agita- 
tion are  terrible  once  the  desire  to  act  gets  hold  of  them. 
They  lower  their  heads  and  charge  a  wall  with  an  amaz- 
ing serenity  which  nothing  but  an  indisciplined  imagina- 
tion can  give. 

He  was  not  a  fool.  I  suppose  he  knew — or  at  least  he 
felt — where  this  was  leading  him.  But  his  complete  in- 
experience gave  him  the  necessary  audacity.  The  girl's 
voice  was  charming  when  she  spoke  to  him  of  her  miser- 
able past,  in  simple  terms,  with  a  sort  of  unconscious 
cynicism  inherent  in  the  truth  of  the  ugly  conditions  of 
poverty.  And  whether  because  he  was  humane  or  be- 
cause her  voice  included  all  the  modulations  of  pathos, 
cheerfulness  and  courage  in  its  compass,  it  was  not  dis- 
gust that  the  tale  awakened  in  him,  but  the  sense  of  an 
immense  sadness. 

74 


VICTORY  75 

On  a  later  evening,  during  the  interval  between  the 
two  parts  of  the  concert,  the  girl  told  Heyst  about  herself. 
She  was  almost  a  child  of  the  streets.  Her  father  was  a 
musician  in  the  orchestras  of  small  theatres.  Her  mother 
ran  away  from  him  while  she  was  little,  and  the  landladies 
of  various  poor  lodging-houses  had  attended  casually  to 
her  abandoned  childhood.  It  was  never  positive  starvation 
and  absolute  rags,  but  it  was  the  hopeless  grip  of  poverty 
all  the  time.  It  was  her  father  who  taught  her  to  play  the 
violin.  It  seemed  that  he  used  to  get  drunk  sometimes,  but 
without  pleasure,  and  only  because  he  was  unable  to  forget 
his  fugitive  wife.  After  he  had  a  paralytic  stroke,  falling 
over  with  a  crash  in  the  well  of  a  music-hall  orchestra 
during^  the  performance,  she  had  joined  the  Zangiacomo 
company.  He  was  now  in  a  home  for  incurables. 

"And  I  am  here,"  she  finished,  "with  no  one  to  care 
if  I  make  a  hole  in  the  water  the  next  chance  I  get  or  not.'' 

Heyst  told  her  that  he  thought  she  could  do  a  little 
better  than  that,  if  it  was  only  a  question  of  getting  out 
of  the  world.  She  looked  at  him  with  special  attention, 
and  with  a  puzzled  expression  which  gave  to  her  face  an 
air  of  innocence. 

This  was  during  one  of  the  "intervals"  between  the 
two  parts  of  the  concert.  She  had  come  down  that  time 
without  being  incited  thereto  by  a  pinch  from  the  awful 
Zangiacomo  woman.  It  is  difficult  to  suppose  that  she 
was  seduced  by  the  uncovered  intellectual  forehead  and 
the  long  reddish  moustaches  of  her  new  friend.  New  is 
not  the  right  word.  She  had  never  had  a  friend  before; 
and  the  sensation  of  this  friendliness  going  out  to  her 
was  exciting  by  its  novelty  alone.  Besides,  any  man  who 
did  not  resemble  Schomberg  appeared  for  that  very 
reason  attractive.  She  was  afraid  of  the  hotel-keeper,  who, 
in  the  daytime,  taking  advantage  of  the  fact  that  she  lived 
in  the  hotel  itself,  and  not  in  the  Pavilion  with  the  other 
^'artists,"  prowled  round  her,  mute,  hungry,  portentous 


76  VICTORY 

behind  his  great  beard,  or  else  assailed  her  in  quiet  cor- 
ners and  empty  passages  with  deep,  mysterious  murmurs 
from  behind,  which,  notwithstanding  their  clear  import, 
sounded  horribly  insane  somehow. 

The  contrast  of  Heyst's  quiet,  polished  manner  gave 
her  special  delight  and  filled  her  with  admiration.  She  had 
never  seen  anything  like  that  before.  If  she  had,  perhaps, 
known  kindness  in  her  life,  she  had  never  met  the  forms 
of  simple  courtesy.  She  was  interested  by  it  as  by  a  very 
novel  experience,  not  very  intelligible,  but  distinctly 
pleasurable. 

"I  tell  you  they  are  too  many  for  me,"  she  repeated, 
sometimes  recklessly,  but  more  often  shaking  her  head 
with  ominous  dejection. 

She  had,  of  course,  no  money  at  all.  The  quantities 
of  "black  men"  all  about  frightened  her.  She  really  had 
no  definite  idea  where  she  was  on  the  surface  of  the  globe. 
The  orchestra  was  generally  taken  from  the  steamer  to 
some  hotel,  and  kept  shut  up  there  till  it  was  time  to  go 
on  board  another  steamer.  She  could  not  remember  the 
names  she  heard. 

"How  do  you  call  this  place  again?"  she  used  to  ask 
Heyst. 

"Sourabaya,"  he  would  say  distinctly,  and  would  watch 
the  discouragement  at  the  outlandish  sound  coming  into 
her  eyes,  which  were  fastened  on  his  face. 

He  could  not  defend  himself  from  compassion.  He 
suggested  that  she  might  go  to  the  consul,  but  it  was  his 
conscience  that  dictated  this  advice,  not  his  conviction. 
She  had  never  heard  of  the  animal  or  of  its  uses.  A 
consul!  What  was  it?  Who  was  he?  What  could  he  do? 
And  when  she  learned  that  perhaps  he  could  be  induced 
to  send  her  home,  her  head  dropped  on  her  breast. 

"What  am  I  to  do  when  I  get  there?"  she  murmured 
with  an  intonation  so  just,  with  an  accent  so  penetrating 
— ^the  charm  of  her  voice  did  not  fail  her  even  in  whisper- 


VICTORY  77 

ing — that  Heyst  seemed  to  see  the  illusion  of  human 
fellowship  on  earth  vanish  before  the  naked  truth  of  her 
existence,  and  leave  them  both  face  to  face  in  a  moral 
desert  as  arid  as  the  sands  of  Sahara,  without  restful 
shade,  without  refreshing  water. 

She  leaned  slightly  over  the  little  table,  the  same  little 
table  at  which  they  had  sat  when  they  first  met  each  other ; 
and  with  no  other  memories  but  of  the  stones  in  the 
streets  her  childhood  had  known,  in  the  distress  of  the 
incoherent,  confused,  rudimentary  impressions  of  her 
travels  inspiring  her  with  a  vague  terror  of  the  world, 
she  said  rapidly,  as  one  speaks  in  desperation: 

''You  do  something!  You  are  a  gentleman.  It  wasn't  I 
who  spoke  to  you  first,  was  it?  I  didn't  begin,  did  I?  It 
was  you  who  came  along  and  spoke  to  me  when  I  was 
standing  over  there.  What  did  you  want  to  speak  to  me 
for?  I  don't  care  what  it  is,  but  you  must  do  something." 

Her  attitude  was  fierce  and  entreating  at  the  same  time 
— clamorous,  in  fact,  though  her  voice  had  hardly  risen 
above  a  breath.  It  was  clamorous  enough  to  be  noticed. 
Heyst,  on  purpose,  laughed  aloud.  She  nearly  choked  with 
indignation  at  this  brutal  heartlessness. 

"What  did  you  mean,  then,  by  saying  'command  me'?" 
she  almost  hissed. 

Something  hard  in  his  mirthless  stare,  and  a  quiet 
final  "All  right,"  steadied  her. 

"I  am  not  rich  enough  to  buy  you  out,"  he  went  on, 
speaking  with  an  extraordinary  detached  grin,  "even  if  it 
were  to  be  done;  but  I  can  always  steal  you." 

She  looked  at  him  profoundly,  as  though  these  words 
had  a  hidden  and  very  complicated  meaning. 

"Get  away  now,"  he  said  rapidly,  "and  try  to  smile  as 
you  go." 

She  obeyed  with  unexpected  readiness;  and  as  she  had 
a  set  of  very  good  white  teeth,  the  effect  of  the  mechani- 
cal,   ordered    smile   was    joyous,    radiant.    It    astonished 


78  VICTORY 

Heyst.  No  wonder,  it  flashed  though  his  mind,  women 
can  deceive  men  so  completely.  The  faculty  was  inherent 
in  them ;  they  seemed  to  be  created  with  a  special  aptitude. 
Here  was  a  smile  the  origin  of  which  was  well  known 
to  him ;  and  yet  it  had  conveyed  a  sensation  of  warmth, 
had  given  him  a  sort  of  ardour  to  live  which  was  very 
new  to  his  experience. 

By  this  time  she  was  gone  from  the  table,  and  had 
joined  the  other  "ladies  of  the  orchestra."  They  trooped 
towards  the  platform,  driven  in  truculently  by  the  haughty 
mate  of  Zangiacomo,  who  looked  as  though  she  were  re- 
straining herself  with  difficulty  from  punching  their  backs. 
Zangiacomo  followed,  with  his  great,  pendulous  dyed 
beard  and  short  mess-jacket,  with  an  aspect  of  hang-dog 
concentration  imparted  by  his  drooping  head  and  the  un- 
easiness of  his  eyes,  which  were  set  very  close  together. 
He  climbed  the  steps  last  of  all,  turned  about,  displaying 
his  purple  beard  to  the  hall,  and  tapped  with  his  bow. 
Heyst  winced  in  anticipation  of  the  horrible  racket.  It 
burst  out  immediately  unabashed  and  awful.  At  the  end 
of  the  platform  the  woman  at  the  piano,  presenting  her 
cruel  profile,  her  head  tilted  back,  banged  the  keys  without 
looking  at  the  music. 

Heyst  could  not  stand  the  uproar  for  more  than  a 
minute.  He  went  out,  his  brain  racked  by  the  rhythm  of 
some  more  or  less  Hungarian  dance  music.  The  forests 
inhabited  by  the  New  Guinea  cannibals  where  he  had  en- 
countered the  most  exciting  of  his  earlier  futile  adven- 
tures were  silent.  And  this  adventure,  not  in  its  execution, 
perhaps,  but  in  its  nature,  required  even  more  nerve  than 
anything  he  had  faced  before.  Walking  among  the  paper 
lanterns  suspended  to  trees  he  remembered  with  regret  the 
gloom  and  the  dead  stillness  of  the  forests  at  the  back 
of  Geelvink  Bay,  perhaps  the  wildest,  the  unsafest,  the 
most  deadly  spot  on  earth  from  which  the  sest  can  be 
seen.  Oppressed  by  his  thoughts,  he  sought  the  obscurity 


VICTORY  ^^ 

and  peace  of  his  bedroom;  but  they  were  not  complete. 
The  distant  sounds  of  the  concert  reached  his  ear,  faint 
indeed  but  still  disturbing.  Neither  did  he  feel  very  safe 
in  there;  for  that  sentiment  depends  not  on  extraneous 
circumstances  but  on  our  inward  conviction.  He  did  not 
attempt  to  go  to  sleep;  he  did  not  even  unbutton  the  top 
button  of  his  tunic.  He  sat  in  a  chair  and  mused.  For- 
merly, in  solitude  and  in  silence,  he  had  been  used  to 
think  clearly  and  sometimes  even  profoundly,  seeing  life 
outside  the  flattering  optical  delusion  of  everlasting  hope, 
of  conventional  self-deceptions,  of  an  ever-expected  hap- 
piness. But  now  he  was  troubled;  a  light  veil  seemed  to 
hang  before  his  mental  vision ;  the  awakening  of  a  tender- 
ness, indistinct  and  confused  as  yet,  towards  an  unknown 
woman. 

Gradually  silence,  a  real  silence,  had  established  itself 
round  him.  The  concert  was  over ;  the  audience  had  gone ; 
the  concert-hall  was  dark;  and  even  the  Pavilion,  where 
the  ladies'  orchestra  slept  after  its  noisy  labours,  showed 
not  a  gleam  of  light.  Heyst  suddenly  felt  restless  in  all 
his  limbs.  As  this  reaction  from  the  long  immobility  would 
not  be  denied,  he  humoured  it  by  passing  quietly  along 
the  back  verandah  and  out  into  the  grounds  at  the  side  of 
the  house,  into  the  black  shadows  under  the  trees,  where 
the  extinguished  paper  lanterns  were  gently  swinging 
their  globes  like  withered  fruit.. 

He  paced  there  to  and  fro  for  a  long  time,  a  calm, 
meditative  ghost  in  his  white  drill  suit,  revolving  in  his 
head  thoughts  absolutely  novel,  disquieting,  and  seductive ; 
accustoming  his  mind  to  the  contemplation  of  his  purpose, 
in  order  that  by  being  faced  steadily  it  should  appear 
praiseworthy  and  wise.  For  the  use  of  reason  is  to  justify 
the  obscure  desires  that  move  our  conduct,  impulses,  pas- 
sions, prejudices  and  follies,  and  also  our  fears. 

He  felt  that  he  had  engaged  himself  by  a  rash  promise 
to   an   action   big   with   incalculable   consequences.    And 


8o  VICTORY 

then  he  asked  himself  if  the  girl  had  understood  what  he 
meant.  Who  could  tell?  He  was  assailed  by  all  sorts  of 
doubts.  Raising  his  head,  he  perceived  something  white 
flitting  between  the  trees.  It  vanished  almost  at  once ;  but 
there  could  be  no  mistake.  He  was  vexed  at  being  detected 
roaming  like  this  in  the  middle  of  the  night.  Who  could 
that  be?  It  never  occurred  to  him  that  perhaps  the  girl, 
too,  would  not  be  able  to  sleep.  He  advanced  prudently. 
Then  he  saw  the  white,  phantom-like  apparition  again; 
and  next  moment  all  his  doubts  as  to  the  state  of  her  mind 
were  laid  at  rest,  because  he  felt  her  clinging  to  him  after 
the  manner  of  supplicants  all  the  world  over.  Her  whis- 
pers were  so  incoherent  that  he  could  not  understand 
anything;  but  this  did  not  prevent  him  from  being  pro- 
foundly moved.  He  had  no  illusions  about  her;  but  his 
sceptical  mind  was  dominated  by  the  fulness  of  his  heart. 

"Calm  yourself,  calm  yourself,"  he  murmured  in  her 
ear,  returning  her  clasp  at  first  mechanically,  and  after- 
ward with  a  growing  appreciation  of  her  distressed 
humanity.  The  heaving  of  her  breast  and  the  trembling 
of  all  her  limbs,  in  the  closeness  of  his  embrace,  seemed  to 
enter  his  body,  to  infect  his  very  heart.  While  she  was 
growing  quieter  in  his  arms,  he  was  becoming  more  agi- 
tated, as  if  there  were  only  a  fixed  quantity  of  violent 
emotion  on  this  earth.  The  very  night  seemed  more  dumb, 
more  still,  and  the  immobility  of  the  vague,  black  shapes 
surrounding  him  more  perfect. 

'Tt  will  be  all  right,"  he  tried  to  reassure  her,  with  a 
tone  of  conviction,  speaking  into  her  ear,  and  of  necessity 
clasping  her  more  closely  than  before. 

Either  the  words  or  the  action  had  a  very  good  effect. 
He  heard  a  light  sigh  of  relief.  She  spoke  with  a  calmed 
ardour. 

"Oh,  I  knew  it  would  be  all  right  from  the  first  time 
you  spoke  to  me !  Yes,  indeed,  I  knew  directly  you  came 
up  to  me  that  evening.  I  knew  it  would  be  all  right,  if  you 


VICTORY  8i 

only  cared  to  make  it  so ;  but  of  course  I  could  not  tell  if 
you  meant  it.  'Command  me/  you  said.  Funny  thing  for  a 
man  like  you  to  say.  Did  you  really  mean  it  ?  You  weren't 
making  fun  of  me?'* 

He  protested  that  he  had  been  a  serious  person  all  his 
life. 

"I  believe  you/'  she  said  ardently.  He  was  touched  by 
this  declaration.  "It's  the  way  you  have  of  speaking  as  if 
you  were  amused  with  peeple/'  she  went  on.  "But  I 
wasn't  deceived.  I  could  see  you  were  angry  with  that 
beast  of  a  woman.  And  you  are  clever.  You  spotted  some- 
thing at  once.  You  saw  it  in  my  face,  eh?  It  isn't  a  bad 
face — say?  You'll  never  be  sorry.  Listen — I'm  not  twenty 
yet.  It's  the  truth,  and  I  can't  be  so  bad  looking,  or  else — 
I  will  tell  you  straight  that  I  have  been  worried  and  pes- 
tered by  fellows  like  this  before.  I  don't  know  what  comes 
to  them " 

She  was  speaking  hurriedly.  She  choked,  and  then 
exclaimed,  with  an  accent  of  despair : 

"What  is  it?  What's  the  matter?" 

Heyst  had  removed  his  arms  from  her  suddenly,  and 
had  recoiled  a  httle.  "Is  it  my  fault?  I  didn't  even  look 
at  them,  I  tell  you  straight.  Never!  Have  I  looked  at  you? 
Tell  me.  It  was  you  that  began  it." 

In  truth,  Heyst  had  shrunk  from  the  idea  of  competition 
with  fellows  unknown,  with  Schomberg  the  hotel-keeper. 
The  vaporous  white  figure  before  him  swayed  pitifully 
in  the  darkness.  He  felt  ashamed  of  his  fastidiousness. 

"I  am  afraid  we  have  been  detected,"  he  murmured. 
"I  think  I  saw  somebody  on  the  path  between  the  house 
and  the  bushes  behind  you." 

He  had  seen  no  one.  It  was  a  compassionate  lie,  if 
there  ever  was  one.  His  compassion  was  as  genuine  as 
his  shrinking  had  been,  and  in  his  judgment  more  honour- 
able. 

She  didn't  turn  her  head.  She  was  obviously  relieved. 


82  VICTORY 

'Would  it  be  that  brute?"  she  breathed  out,  meaning 
Schomberg,  of  course.  "He's  getting  too  forward  with 
me  now.  What  can  you  expect?  Only  this  evening,  after 
supper,  he — but  I  slipped  away.  You  don't  mind  him,  do 
you?  Why,  I  could  face  him  myself  now  that  I  know 
you  care  for  me.  A  girl  can  always  put  up  a  fight.  You 
believe  me?  Only  it  isn't  easy  to  stand  up  for  yourself 
when  you  feel  there's  nothing  and  nobody  at  your  back. 
There's  nothing  so  lonely  in  the  world  as  a  girl  who  has 
got  to  look  after  herself.  When  I  left  poor  dad  in  that 
home — it  was  in  the  country,  near  a  village — I  came  out 
of  the  gates  with  seven  shillings  and  three-pence  in  my 
old  purse,  and  my  railway  ticket.  I  tramped  a  mile,  and 
got  into  a  train " 

She  broke  oif ,  and  was  silent  for  a  moment. 

"Don't  you  throw  me  over  now,"  she  went  on.  "If  you 
did,  what  should  I  do?  I  should  have  to  live,  to  be  sure, 
because  I'd  be  afraid  to  kill  myself ;  but  you  would  have 
done  a  thousand  times  worse  than  killing  a  body.  You 
told  me  you  had  been  always  alone,  you  had  never  had 
a  dog,  even.  Well,  then,  I  won't  be  in  anybody's  way 
if  I  live  with  you — not  even  a  dog's.  And  what  else  did 
you  mean  when  you  came  up  and  looked  at  me  so  close?" 

"Close?  Did  I?"  he  murmured  unstirring  before  her 
in  the  profound  darkness.  "So  close  as  that?" 

She  had  an  outbreak  of  anger  and  despair  in  subdued 
tones. 

"Have  you  forgotten,  then?  What  did  you  expect  to 
find?  I  know  what  sort  of  girl  I  am;  but  all  the  same  I 
am  not  the  sort  that  men  turn  their  backs  on — and  you 
ought  to  know  it,  unless  you  aren't  made  like  the  others. 
Oh,  forgive  me!  You  aren't  like  the  others;  you  are  like 
no  one  in  the  world  I  ever  spoke  to.  Don't  you  care  for 
me?  Don't  you  see ?" 

What  he  saw  was  that,  white  and  spectral,  she  was  put- 
ting out  her  arms  to  him  out  of  the  black  shadows  like 


VICTORY  83 

an  appealing  ghost.  He  took  her  hands,  and  was  affected, 
almost  surprised,  to  find  them  so  warm,  so  real,  so  firm, 
so  living  in  his  grasp.  He  drew  her  to  him,  and  she 
dropped  her  head  on  his  shoulder  with  a  deep  sigh. 

*1  am  dead  tired,'*  she  whispered  plaintively. 

He  put  his  arms  around  her,  and  only  by  the  convul- 
sive movements  of  her  body  became  aware  that  she  was 
sobbing  without  a  sound.  Sustaining  her,  he  lost  himself 
in  the  profound  silence  of  the  night.  After  a  while  she 
became  still,  and  cried  quietly.  Then,  suddenly,  as  if 
waking  up,  she  asked : 

"You  haven't  seen  any  more  of  that  somebody  you 
thought  was  spying  about  ?" 

He  started  at  her  quick,  sharp  whisper,  and  answered 
that  very  likely  he  had  been  mistaken. 

"If  it  was  anybody  at  all,"  she  reflected  aloud,  "it 
wouldn't  have  been  any  one  but  that  hotel  woman — ^the 
landlord's  wife." 

"Mrs.  Schomberg?"  Heyst  said,  surprised. 

"Yes.  Another  one  that  can't  sleep  o'  nights.  Why? 
Don't  you  see  why?  Because,  of  course,  she  sees  what's 
going  on.  That  beast  doesn't  even  try  to  keep  it  from 
her.  If  she  had  only  the  least  bit  of  spirit!  She  knows 
how  I  feel,  too,  only  she's  too  frightened  even  to  look 
him  in  the  face,  let  alone  open  her  mouth.  He  would  tell 
her  to  go  hang  herself." 

For  some  time  Heyst  said  nothing.  A  public,  active 
contest  with  the  hotel-keeper  was  not  to  be  thought  of. 
The  idea  was  horrible.  Whispering  gently  to  the  girl,  he 
tried  to  explain  to  her  that  as  things  stood,  an  open  with- 
drawal from  the  company  would  be  probably  opposed. 
She  listened  to  his  explanation  anxiously,  from  time  to 
time  pressing  the  hand  she  had  sought  and  got  hold  of 
in  the  dark. 

"As  I  told  you,  I  am  not  rich  enough  to  buy  you  out ; 
so  I  shall  steal  you  as  soon  as  I  can  arrange  some  means 


84  VICTORY 

of  getting  away  from  here.  Meantime  it  would  be  fatal 
to  be  seen  together  at  night.  We  mustn't  give  ourselves 
away.  We  had  better  part  at  once.  I  think  I  was  mistaken 
just  now;  but  if,  as  you  say,  that  poor  Mrs.  Schomberg 
can't  sleep  of  nights,  w^e  must  be  more  careful.  She  would 
tell  the  fellow." 

The  girl  had  disengaged  herself  from  his  loose  hold 
while  he  talked,  and  now  stood  free  of  him,  but  still 
clasping  his  hand  firmly. 

"Oh,  no,"  she  said  with  perfect  assurance.  "I  tell  you 
she  daren't  open  her  mouth  to  him.  And  she  isn't  as  silly 
as  she  looks.  She  wouldn't  give  us  away.  She  knows  a 
trick  worth  two  of  that.  She'll  help — that's  what  she'll 
do,  if  she  dares  do  anything  at  all." 

''You  seem  to  have  a  very  clear  view  of  the  situation," 
said  Heyst,  and  received  a  warm,  lingering  kiss  for  this 
commendation. 

He  discovered  that  to  part  from  her  was  not  such  an 
easy  matter  as  he  had  supposed  it  would  be. 

*'Upon  my  word,"  he  said  before  they  separated,  "I 
don't  even  know  your  name." 

''Don't  you?  They  call  me  Alma.  I  don't  know  why. 
Silly  name !  Magdalen  too.  It  doesn't  matter ;  you  can  call 
me  by  whatever  name  you  choose.  Yes,  you  give  me  a 
name.  Think  of  one  you  would  like  the  sound  of — some- 
thing quite  new.  How  I  should  like  to  forget  everything 
that  has  gone  before,  as  one  forgets  a  dream  that's  done 
with,  fright  and  all !  I  would  try." 

"Would  you  really?"  he  asked  in  a  murmur.  "But 
that's  not  forbidden.  I  understand  that  women  easily  for- 
get whatever  in  their  past  diminishes  them  in  their  eyes." 

"It's  your  eyes  that  I  was  thinking  of,  for  I'm  sure 
I've  never  wished  to  forget  anything  till  you  came  up 
to  me  that  night  and  looked  me  through  and  through.  I 
know  I'm  not  much  account ;  but  I  know  how  to  stand  by 
a  man.  I  stood  by  father  ever  since  I  could  understand. 


VICTORY  85 

He  wasn't  a  bad  chap.  Now  that  I  can't  be  of  any  use 
to  him,  I  would  just  as  soon  forget  all  that  and  make  a 
fresh  start.  But  these  aren't  things  that  I  could  talk  to 
you  about.  What  could  I  ever  talk  to  you  about?" 

"Don't  let  it  trouble  you,"  Heyst  said.  **Your  voice  is 
enough.  I  am  in  love  with  it,  whatever  it  says." 

She  remained  silent  for  a  while,  as  if  rendered  breath- 
less by  this  quiet  statement. 

*'Oh !  I  wanted  to  ask  you " 

He  remembered  that  she  probably  did  not  know  his 
name,  and  expected  the  question  to  be  put  to  him  now; 
but  after  a  moment  of  hesitation  she  went  on : 

"Why  was  it  that  you  told  me  to  smile  this  evening 
in  the  concert-room  there — you  remember?" 

"I  thought  we  were  being  observed.  A  smile  is  the  best 
of  masks.  Schomberg  was  at  a  table  next  but  one  to  us, 
drinking  with  some  Dutch  clerks  from  the  town.  No  doubt 
he  was  watching  us — watching  you,  at  least.  That's  why 
I  asked  you  to  smile." 

"Ah,  that's  why.  It  never  came  into  my  head." 

"And  you  did  it  very  well,  too — very  readily,  as  if  you 
had  understood  my  intention." 

"Readily !"  she  repeated.  "Oh,  I  was  ready  enough  to 
smile  then.  That's  the  truth.  It  was  the  first  time  for  years 
I  may  say  that  I  felt  disposed  to  smile.  I've  not  had  many 
chances  to  smile  in  my  Hfe,  I  can  tell  you;  especiall)^ 
of  late." 

"But  you  do  it  most  charmingly — in  a  perfectly  fasci- 
nating way." 

He  paused.  She  stood  still,  waiting  for  more  with  the 
stillness  of  extreme  delight,  wishing  to  prolong  the 
sensation. 

"It  astonished  me,"  he  added.  "It  went  as  straight  to 
my  heart  as  though  you  had  smiled  for  the  purpose  of 
dazzling  me.  I  felt  as  if  I  had  never  seen  a  smile  before 


86  VICTORY 

in  my  life.  I  thought  of  it  after  I  left  you.  It  made  me 
restless.'' 

"It  did  all  that?"  came  her  voice,  unsteady,  gentle,  and 
incredulous. 

"If  you  had  not  smiled  as  you  did,  perhaps  I  should 
not  have  come  out  here  to-night,"  he  said,  with  his  playful 
earnestness  of  tone.  "It  was  your  triumph." 

He  felt  her  lips  touch  his  lightly,  and  the  next  moment 
she  was  gone.  Her  white  dress  gleamed  in  the  distance, 
and  then  the  opaque  darkness  of  the  house  seemed  to 
swallow  it.  Heyst  waited  a  little  before  he  went  the  same 
way,  round  the  corner,  up  the  steps  of  the  verandah,  and 
into  his  room,  where  he  lay  down  at  last — not  to  sleep, 
but  to  go  over  in  his  mind  all  that  had  been  said  at  their 
meeting. 

"It's  exactly  true  about  that  smile,"  he  thought.  There 
he  had  spoken  the  truth  to  her ;  and  about  her  voice,  too. 
For  the  rest — what  must  be  must  be. 

A  great  wave  of  heat  passed  over  him.  He  turned  on 
his  back,  flung  his  arms  crosswise  on  the  broad,  hard  bed, 
and  lay  still,  open-eyed  under  the  mosquito  net,  till  day- 
light entered  his  room,  brightened  swiftly,  and  turned 
to  unfailing  sunlight.  He  got  up  then,  went  to  a  small 
looking-glass  hanging  on  the  wall,  and  stared  at  himself 
steadily.  It  was  not  a  new-born  vanity  which  induced  this 
long  survey.  He  felt  so  strange  that  he  could  not  resist 
the  suspicion  of  his  personal  appearance  having  changed 
during  the  night.  What  he  saw  in  the  glass,  however,  was 
the  man  he  knew  before.  It  was  almost  a  disappointment 
— a  belittling  of  his  recent  experience.  And  then  he  smiled 
at  his  naiveness ;  for,  being  over  five  and  thirty  years  of 
age,  he  ought  to  have  known  that  in  most  cases  the  body 
is  the  unalterable  mask  of  the  soul,  which  even  death 
itself  changes  but  little,  till  it  is  put  out  of  sight  where 
no  changes  matter  any  more,  either  to  our  friends  or  to 
our  enemies. 


VICTORY  87 

Heyst  was  not  conscious  of  either  friends  or  of  enemies. 
It  was  the  very  essence  of  his  Hfe  to  be  a  solitary  achieve- 
ment, accompHshed  not  by  hermit-Hke  withdrawal  with 
its  silence  and  immobility,  but  by  a  system  of  restless 
wandering,  by  the  detachment  of  an  impermanent  dweller 
amongst  changing  scenes.  In  this  scheme  he  had  perceived 
the  means  of  passing  through  life  without  suffering  and 
almost  without  a  single  care  in  the  world — invulnerable 
because  elusive. 


Ill 

For  fifteen  years  Heyst  had  wandered,  invariably 
courteous  and  unapproachable,  and  in  return  was  generally 
considered  a  ''queer  chap."  He  had  started  off  on  these 
travels  of  his  after  the  death  of  his  father,  an  expatriated 
Swede  who  died  in  London,  dissatisfied  with  his  country 
and  angry  with  all  the  world,  which  had  instinctively 
rejected  his  wisdom. 

Thinker,  stylist,  and  man  of  the  world  in  his  time,  the 
elder  Heyst  had  begun  by  coveting  all  the  joys,  those  of 
the  great  and  those  of  the  humble,  those  of  the  fools  and 
those  of  the  sages.  For  more  than  sixty  years  he  had 
dragged  on  this  painful  earth  of  ours  the  most  weary,  the 
most  uneasy  soul  that  civilisation  had  ever  fashioned  to 
its  ends  of  disillusion  and  regret.  One  could  not  refuse 
him  a  measure  of  greatness,  for  he  was  unhappy  in  a  way 
unknown  to  mediocre  souls.  His  mother  Heyst  had  never 
known,  but  he  kept  his  father's  pale,  distinguished  face 
in  affectionate  memory.  He  remembered  him  mainly  in  an 
ample  blue  dressing-gown  in  a  large  house  of  a  quiet 
London  suburb.  For  three  years,  after  leaving  school  at 
the  age  of  eighteen,  he  had  lived  with  the  elder  Heyst, 
who  was  then  writing  his  last  book.  In  this  work,  at  the 
end  of  his  life,  he  claimed  for  mankind  that  right  to  abso- 
lute moral  and  intellectual  liberty  of  which  he  no  longer 
believed  them  worthy. 

Three  years  of  such  companionship  at  that  plastic  and 
impressionable  age  were  bound  to  leave  in  the  boy  a  pro- 
found mistrust  of  life.  The  young  man  learned  to  reflect, 
which  is  a  destructive  process,  a  reckoning  of  the  cost. 

88 


VICTORY  89 

It  is  not  the  clear-sighted  who  lead  the  world.  Great 
achievements  are  accomplished  in  a  blessed,  warm  mental 
fog,  which  the  pitiless  cold  blasts  of  the  father's  analysis 
had  blown  away  from  the  son. 

"I'll  drift,"  Heyst  had  said  to  ^himself  deliberately. 

He  did  not  mean  intellectually  or  sentimentally  or 
morally.  He  meant  to  drift  altogether  and  literally,  body 
and  soul,  like  a  detached  leaf  drifting  in  the  wind-currents 
under  the  immovable  trees  of  a  forest  glade ;  to  drift  with- 
out ever  catching  on  to  anything. 

"This  shall  be  my  defence  against  life,"  he  had  said  to 
himself  with  a  sort  of  inward  consciousness  that  for  the 
son  of  his  father  there  was  no  other  worthy  alternative. 

He  became  a  waif  and  stray,  austerely,  from. convic- 
tion, as  others  do  through  drink,  from  vice,  from  some 
weakness  of  character — with  deliberation,  as  others  do  in 
despair.  This,  stripped  of  its  facts,  had  been  Heyst's  life 
up  to  that  disturbing  night.  Next  day,  when  he  saw  the 
girl  called  Alma,  she  managed  to  give  him  a  glance  of 
frank  tenderness,  quick  as  lightning,  and  leaving  a  pro- 
found impression,  a  secret  touch  on  the  heart.  It  was  in 
the  grounds  of  the  hotel,  about  tiffin  time,  while  the  ladies 
of  the  orchestra  were  strolling  back  to  their  pavilion  after 
rehearsal,  or  practice,  or  whatever  they  called  their  morn- 
ing musical  exercises  in  the  hall.  Heyst,  returning  from 
the  town,  where  he  had  discovered  that  there  would  be 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  getting  away  at  once,  was  cross- 
ing the  compound,  disappointed  and  worried.  He  had 
walked  almost  unwittingly  into  the  straggling  group  of 
Zangiacomo's  performers.  It  was  a  shock  to  him,  on 
coming  out  of  his  brown  study,  to  find  the  girl  so  near 
him,  as  if  one  waking  suddenly  should  see  the  figure  of 
his  dream  turned  into  flesh  and  blood.  She  did  not  raise 
her  shapely  head,  but  her  glance  was  no  dream  thing.  It 
was  real,  the  most  real  impression  of  his  detached  exist- 
ence— so  far. 


90  VICTORY 

Heyst  had  not  acknowledged  it  in  any  way,  though  it 
seemed  to  him  impossible  that  its  effect  on  him  should 
not  be  visible  to  any  one  who  happened  to,  be  looking  on. 
And  there  were  several  men  on  the  verandah,  steady 
customers  of  Schomberg's  table  d'hote,  gazing  in  his  direc- 
tion— ^at  the  ladies  of  the  orchestra,  in  fact.  Heyst's  dread 
arose,  not  out  of  shame  or  timidity,  but  from  his 
fastidiousness.  On  getting  amongst  them,  however,  he 
noticed  no  signs  of  interest  or  astonishment  on  their  faces, 
any  more  than  if  they  had  been  blind  men.  Even  Schom- 
berg  himself,  who  had  to  make  way  for  him  at  the  top 
of  the  stairs,  was  completely  unperturbed,  and  continued 
the  conversation  he  was  carrying  on  with  a  client. 

Schomberg,  indeed,  had  observed  ''that  Swede"  talking 
with  the  girl  in  the  intervals.  A  crony  of  his  had  nudged 
him ;  and  he  had  thought  that  it  was  so  much  the  better ; 
the  silly  fellow  would  keep  everybody  else  off.  He  was 
rather  pleased  than  otherwise  and  watched  them  out  of 
the  corner  of  his  eye  with  a  malicious  enjoyment  of  the 
situation — a  sort  of  Satanic  glee.  For  he  had  little  doubt 
of  his  personal  fascination,  and  still  less  of  his  power  to 
get  hold  of  the  girl,  who  seemed  too  ignorant  to  know  how 
to  help  herself,  and  who  was  worse  than  friendless,  since 
she  had  for  some  reason  incurred  the  animosity  of  Mrs. 
Zangiacomo,  a  woman  with  no  conscience.  The  aversion 
she  showed  him  as  far  as  she  dared  (for  it  is  not  always 
safe  for  the  helpless  to  display  the  delicacy  of  their  senti- 
ments), Schomberg  pardoned  on  the  score  of  feminine 
conventional  silliness.  He  had  told  Alma,  as  an  argument, 
that  she  was  a  clever  enough  girl  to  see  that  she  could  do 
no  better  than  to  put  her  trust  in  a  man  of  substance,  in 
the  prime  of  life,  who  knew  his  way  about.  But  for  the 
excited  trembling  of  his  voice,  and  the  extraordinary  way 
in  which  his  eyes  seemed  to  be  starting  out  of  his  crimson, 
hirsute  countenance,  such  speeches  had  every  character  of 


VICTORY  91 

calm,  unselfish  advice — which,  after  the  manner  of  lovers, 
passed  easily  into  sanguine  plans  for  the  future. 

"We'll  soon  get  rid  of  the  old  woman,"  he  whispered 
to  her  hurriedly,  with  panting  ferocity.  "Hang  her!  Fve 
never  cared  for  her.  The  climate  don't  suit  her;  I  shall 
tell  her  to  go  to  her  people  in  Europe.  She  will  have  to  go, 
too !  I  will  see  to  it.  Eins,  zwei,  march !  And  then  we  shall 
sell  this  hotel  and  start  another  somewhere  else.'* 

He  assured  her  that  he  didn't  care  what  he  did  for  her 
sake ;  and  it  was  true.  Forty-five  is  the  age  of  recklessness 
for  many  men,  as  if  in  defiance  of  the  decay  and  death 
waiting  with  open  arms  in  the  sinister  valley  at  the  bottom 
of  the  inevitable  hill.  Her  shrinking  form,  her  downcast 
eyes,  when  she  had  to  listen  to  him,  cornered  at  the  end 
of  an  empty  corridor,  he  regarded  as  signs  of  submission 
to  the  overpowering  force  of  his  will,  the  recognition  of 
his  personal  fascinations.  For  every  age  is  fed  on  illusions, 
lest  men  should  renounce  life  early  and  the  human  race 
come  to  an  end. 

It's  easy  to  imagine  Schomberg's  humiliation,  his 
shocked  fury,  when  he  discovered  that  the  girl  who  had 
for  weeks  resisted  his  attacks,  his  prayers,  and  his  fiercest 
protestations,  had  been  snatched  from  under  his  nose  by 
"that  Swede,"  apparently  without  any  trouble  worth 
speaking  of.  He  refused  to  believe  the  fact.  He  would 
have  it,  at  first,  that  the  Zangiacomos,  for  some  unfathom- 
able reason,  had  played  him  a  scurvy  trick ;  but  when  no 
further  doubt  was  possible,  he  changed  his  view  of  Heyst. 
The  despised  Swede  became  for  Schomberg  the  deepest, 
the  most  dangerous,  the  most  hateful  of  scoundrels.  He 
could  not  believe  that  the  creature  he  had  coveted  with 
so  much  force  and  with  so  little  effect,  was  in  reality  ten- 
der, docile  to  her  impulses,  and  had  almost  offered  herself 
to  Heyst  without  a  sense  of  guilt,  in  a  desire  of  safety, 
and  from  a  profound  need  of  placing  her  trust  where 


92  VICTORY 

her  woman's  instinct  guided  her  ignorance.  Nothing  would 
serve  Schomberg  but  that  she  must  have  been  circum- 
vented by  some  occult  exercise  of  force  or  craft,  by  the 
laying  of  some  subtle  trap.  His  wounded  vanity  wondered 
ceaselessly  at  the  means  "that  Swede"  had  employed  to 
seduce  her  away  from  a  man  like  him — Schomberg — as 
though  those  means  were  bound  to  have  been  extraordi- 
nary, unheard  of,  inconceivable.  He  slapped  his  forehead 
openly  before  his  customers ;  he  would  sit  brooding  in 
silence  or  else  would  burst  out  unexpectedly  declaiming 
against  Heyst  without  measure,  discretion  or  prudence, 
with  swollen  features  and  an  affectation  of  outraged  vir- 
tue which  could  not  have  deceived  the  most  childlike  of 
moralists  for  a  moment — and  greatly  amused  his  audience. 

It  became  a  recognised  entertainment  to  go  and  hear 
his  abuse  of  Heyst,  while  sipping  iced  drinks  on  the 
verandah  of  the  hotel.  It  was,  in  a  manner,  a  more  suc- 
cessful draw  than  the  Zangiacomo  concerts  had  ever  been 
— intervals  and  all.  There  was  never  any  difficulty  in  start- 
ing the  performer  off.  Anybody  could  do  it,  by  almost 
any  distant  allusion.  As  likely  as  not  he  would  start  his 
endless  denunciations  in  the  very  billiard-room  where  Mrs. 
Schomberg  sat  enthroned  as  usual,  swallowing  her  sobs, 
concealing  her  tortures  of  abject  humiliation  and  terror 
under  her  stupid,  set,  everlasting  grin,  which,  having  been 
provided  for  her  by  nature,  was  an  excellent  mask,  inas- 
much as  nothing — ^not  even  death  itself,  perhaps — could 
tear  it  away. 

But  nothing  lasts  in  this  world,  at  least  without  chang- 
ing its  physiognomy.  So,  after  a  few  weeks,  Schomberg 
regained  his  outward  calm,  as  if  his  indignation  had  dried 
up  within  him.  And  it  was  time.  He  was  becoming  a  bore 
with  his  inability  to  talk  of  anything  else  but  Heyst's 
unfitness  to  be  at  large,  Heyst's  wickedness,  his  wiles, 
his  astuteness,  and  his  criminality.  Schomberg  no  longer 
pretended  to  despise  him.   He  could  not  have   done  it. 


VICTORY  93 

After  what  had  happened  he  could  not  pretend,  even  to 
himself.  But  his  bottled-up  indignation  was  fermenting 
venomously.  At  the  time  of  his  immoderate  loquacity  one 
of  his  customers,  an  elderly  man,  had  remarked  one 
evening : 

"If  that  ass  keeps  on  like  this,  he  will  end  by  going 
crazy." 

And  this  belief  was  less  than  half  wrong.  Schomberg 
had  Hey  St  on  the  brain.  Even  the  unsatisfactory  state 
of  his  affairs,  which  had  never  been  so  unpromising  since 
he  came  out  East  directly  after  the  Franco-Prussian  War, 
he  referred  to  some  subtly  noxious  influence  of  Heyst. 
It  seemed  to  him  that  he  could  never  be  himself  again  till 
he  had  got  even  with  that  artful  Swede.  He  was  ready 
to  swear  that  Heyst  had  ruined  his  life.  The  girl  so 
unfairly,  craftily,  basely  decoyed  away  would  have  in- 
spired him  to  success  in  a  new  start.  Obviously  Mrs. 
Schomberg,  whom  he  terrified  by  savagely  silent  moods 
combined  with  underhand,  poisoned  glances,  could  give 
him  no  inspiration.  He  had  grown  generally  neglectful, 
but  with  a  partiality  for  reckless  expedients,  as  if  he  did 
not  care  when  and  how  his  career  as  a  hotel-keeper  was 
to  be  brought  to  an  end.  This  demoralized  state  accounted 
for  what  Davidson  had  observed  on  his  last  visit  to  the 
Schomberg  establishment,  some  two  months  after  Heyst's 
secret  departure  with  the  girl  to  the  solitude  of  Samburan. 

The  Schomberg  of  a  few  years  ago — the  Schomberg 
of  the  Bangkok  days,  for  instance,  when  he  started  the 
first  of  his  famed  table-d'hote  dinners — would  never  have 
risked  anything  of  the  sort.  His  genius  ran  to  catering, 
"white  man  for  white  men,"  and  to  the  inventing,  elabo- 
rating, and  retailing  of  scandalous  gossip  with  asinine 
unction  and  impudent  delight.  But  now  his  mind  was 
perverted  by  the  pangs  of  wounded  vanity  and  of 
thwarted  passion.  In  this  state  of  moral  weakness  Schom- 
berg allowed  himself  to  be  corrupted. 


IV 


The  business  was  done  by  a  guest  who  arrived  one 
fine  morning  by  mail-boat — immediately  from  Celebes, 
having  boarded  her  in  Macassar,  but  generally,  Schom- 
berg  understood,  from  up  China  Sea  way ;  a  wanderer 
clearly,  even  as  Heyst  was,  but  not  alone  and  of  quite 
another  kind. 

Schomberg,  looking  up  from  the  stern-sheets  of  his 
steam-launch,  which  he  used  for  boarding  passenger 
ships  on  arrival,  discovered  a  dark,  sunken  stare  plung- 
ing down  on  him  over  the  rail  of  the  first-class  part  of 
the  deck.  He  was  no  great  judge  of  physiognomy.  Human 
beings,  for  him,  were  either  the  objects  of  scandalous 
gossip  or  else  the  recipients  of  narrow  strips  of  paper, 
with  proper  bill-heads  stating  the  name  of  his  hotel. — *'W. 
Schomberg,  proprietor;  accounts  settled  weekly." 

So  in  the  clean-shaven,  extremely  thin  face  hanging 
over  the  mail-boat's  rail  Schomberg  saw  only  the  face 
of  a  possible  ''account."  The  steam-launches  of  other 
hotels  were  also  alongside,  but  he  obtained  the  preference. 

"You  are  Mr.  Schomberg,  aren't  you?"  the  face  asked 
quite  unexpectedly. 

"I  am,  at  your  service,"  he  answered  from  below;  for 
business  is  business,  and  its  forms  and  formulas  must  be 
observed,  even  if  one's  manly  bosom  is  tortured  by  that 
dull  rage  which  succeeds  the  fury  of  baffled  passion,  like 
the  glow  of  embers  after  a  fierce  blaze. 

Presently  the  possessor  of  the  handsome  but  emaciated 
face  was  seated  beside  Schomberg  in  the  stern-sheets  of 
the  launch.  His  body  was  long  and  loose- jointed;  his 
slender  fingers,  intertwined,  clasped  the  leg  resting  on  his 

94 


VICTORY  95 

knee,  as  he  lolled  back  in  a  careless  yet  tense  attitude. 
On  the  other  side  of  Schomberg  sat  another  passenger, 
who  was  introduced  by  the  clean-shaven  man  as — 

"My  secretary.  He  must  have  the  room  next  to  mine." 

"We  can  manage  that  easily  for  you." 

Schomberg  steered  with  dignity,  staring  straight  ahead, 
but  very  much  interested  by  these  two  promising  "ac- 
counts." Their  belongings,  a  couple  of  large  leather  trunks 
browned  by  age  and  a  few  smaller  packages,  were  piled 
up  in  the  bows.  A  third  individual — a  nondescript,  hairy 
creature — had  modestly  made  his  way  forward  and  had 
perched  himself  on  the  luggage.  The  lower  part  of  his 
physiognomy  was  over-developed;  his  narrow  and  low 
forehead,  unintelligently  furrowed  by  horizontal  wrinkles, 
surmounted  wildly  hirsute  cheeks  and  a  flat  nose  with 
wide,  baboon-like  nostrils.  There  was  something  equivocal 
in  the  appearance  of  his  shaggy,  hair-smothered  humanity. 
He,  too,  seemed  to  be  a  follower  of  the  clean-shaven  man, 
and  apparently  had  travelled  on  deck  with  native  passen- 
gers, sleeping  under  the  awnings.  His  broad,  squat  frame 
denoted  great  strength.  Grasping  the  gunwales  of  the 
launch,  he  displayed  a  pair  of  remarkably  long  arms, 
terminating  in  thick,  brown  hairy  paws  of  simian  aspect. 

"What  shall  we  do  with  that  fellow  of  mine?"  the 
chief  of  the  party  asked  Schomberg.  "There  must  be  a 
boarding-house  somewhere  near  the  port — some  grog-shop 
where  they  could  let  him  have  a  mat  to  sleep  on?" 

Schomberg  said  there  was  a  place  kept  by  a  Portu- 
guese half-caste. 

"A  servant  of  yours?"  he  asked. 

"Well,  he  hangs  on  to  me.  He  is  an  alligator-hunter. 
I  picked  him  up  in  Colombia,  you  know.  Ever  been  in 
Colombia?" 

"No,"  said  Schomberg,  very  much  surprised.  "An 
alligator-hunter?  Funny  trade!  Are  you  coming  from 
Colombia,  then?" 


^  VICTORY 

"Yes,  but  I  have  been  coming  for  a  long  time.  I  come 
from  a  good  many  places.  I  am  travelling  west,  you  see." 

'Tor  sport,  perhaps?"  suggested  Schomberg. 

''Yes.  Sort  of  sport.  What  do  you  say  to  chasing  the 
sun?'* 

"I  see — a  gentleman  at  large,"  said  Schomberg,  watch- 
ing a  sailing  canoe  about  to  cross  his  bow,  and  ready 
to  clear  it  by  a  touch  of  the  helm. 

The  other  passenger  made  himself  heard  suddenly. 

"Hang  these  native  craft !  They  always  get  in  the  way." 

He  was  a  muscular,  short  man  with  eyes  that  gleamed 
and  blinked,  a  harsh  voice,  and  a  round,  toneless,  pock- 
marked face  ornamented  by  a  thin,  dishevelled  moustache 
sticking  out  quaintly  under  the  tip  of  a  rigid  nose.  Schom- 
berg made  the  reflection  that  there  was  nothing  secretarial 
about  him.  Both  he  and  his  long,  lank  principal  wore  the 
usual  white  suit  of  the  tropics,  cork  helmets,  pipe-clayed 
white  shoes — all  correct.  The  hairy  nondescript  creature 
perched  on  their  luggage  in  the  bow  had  a  check  shirt 
and  blue  dungaree  trousers.  He  gazed  in  their  direction 
from  forward  in  an  expectant,  trained-animal  manner. 

"You  spoke  to  me  first,"  said  Schomberg  in  his  manly 
tones.  "You  w^ere  acquainted  with  my  name.  Where  did 
you  hear  of  me,  gentlemen,  may  I  ask?" 

"In  Manila,"  answered  the  gentleman  at  large,  readily. 
"From  a  man  with  whom  I  had  a  game  of  cards  one  eve- 
ning in  the  Hotel  Castille." 

"What  man?  I've  no  friends  in  Manila  that  I  know 
of,"  wondered  Schomberg  with  a  severe  frown. 

"I  can't  tell  you  his  name.  I've  clean  forgotten  it;  but 
don't  you  worry.  He  was  anything  but  a  friend  of  yours. 
He  called  you  all  the  names  he  could  think  of.  He  said 
you  set  a  lot  of  scandal  going  about  him  once,  somewhere 
— in  Bangkok,  I  think.  Yes,  that's  it.  You  were  running 
a  table  d'hote  in  Bangkok  at  one  time,  weren't  you?" 

Schomberg,  astounded  by  the  turn  of  the  information, 


VICTORY  97 

could  only  throw  out  his  chest  more  and  exaggerate  his 
austere  Lieutenant-of-the-Reserve  manner,  A  table  d'hote? 
Yes,  certainly.  He  always — for  the  sake  of  white  men. 
And  here  in  this  place,  too?  Yes,  in  this  place,  too. 

"That's  all  right,  then."  The  stranger  turned  his  black, 
cavernous,  mesmerising  glance  away  from  the  bearded 
Schomberg,  who  sat  gripping  the  brass  tiller  in  a  sweating 
palm.  ''Many  people  in  the  evening  at  your  place?" 

Schomberg  had  recovered  somewhat. 

''Twenty  covers  or  so,  take  one  day  with  another,"  he 
answered  feelingly,  as  befitted  a  subject  on  which  he  was 
sensitive.  "Ought  to  be  more,  if  only  people  would  see 
that  it's  for  their  own  good.  Precious  little  profit  I  get 
out  of  it.  You  are  partial  to  table  d'hotes,  gentlemen?" 

The  new  guest  made  answer  that  he  liked  a  hotel  where 
one  could  find  some  local  people  in  the  evening.  It  was 
infernally  dull  otherwise.  The  secretary,  in  sign  of  ap- 
proval, emitted  a  grunt  of  astonishing  ferocity,  as  if  pro- 
posing to  himself  to  eat  the  local  people.  All  this  sounded 
like  a  longish  stay,  thought  Schomberg,  satisfied  under 
his  grave  air;  till,  remembering  the  girl  snatched  away 
from  him  by  the  last  guest  who  had  made  a  prolonged 
stay  in  his  hotel,  he  ground  his  teeth  so  audibly  that  the 
other  two  looked  at  him  in  wonder.  The  momentary  con- 
vulsion of  his  florid  physiognomy  seemed  to  strike  them 
dumb.  They  exchanged  a  quick  glance.  Presently  the  clean- 
shaven man  fired  out  another  question  in  his  curt,  uncere- 
monious manner : 

"You  have  no  women  in  your  hotel,  eh?" 

"Women!"  Schomberg  exclaimed  indignantly,  but  also 
as  if  a  little  frightened.  "What  on  earth  do  you  mean  by 
women?  What  women?  There's  Mrs.  Schomberg,  of 
course,"  he  added,  suddenly  appeased,  with  lofty  indiffer- 
ence. 

"If  she  knows  how  to  keep  her  place,  then  it  will  do. 


^  VICTORY 

I  can't  stand  women  near  me.  They  give  me  the  horrors," 
declared  the  other.  "They  are  a  perfect  curse !" 

During  this  outburst  the  secretary  wore  a  savage  grin. 
The  chief  guest  closed  his  sunken  eyes,  as  if  exhausted, 
and  leaned  the  back  of  his  head  against  the  stanchion  of 
the  awning.  In  this  pose,  his  long  feminine  eyelashes  were 
very  noticeable,  and  his  regular  features,  sharp  line  of 
the  jaw,  and  well-cut  chin  were  brought  into  prominence, 
giving  him  a  used-up,  weary,  depraved  distinction.  He  did 
not  open  his  eyes  till  the  steam-launch  touched  the  quay. 
Then  he  and  the  other  man  got  ashore  quickly,  entered 
a  carriage,  and  drove  away  to  the  hotel,  leaving  Schom- 
berg  to  look  after  their  luggage  and  take  care  of  their 
strange  companion.  The  latter,  looking  more  like  a  per- 
forming bear  abandoned  by  his  showmen  than  a  human 
being,  followed  all  Schomberg's  movements  step  by  step, 
close  behind  his  back,  muttering  to  himself  in  a  language 
that  sounded  like  some  sort  of  uncouth  Spanish.  The  hotel- 
keeper  felt  uncomfortable  till  at  last  he  got  rid  of  him  at 
an  obscure  den  where  a  very  clean,  portly  Portuguese 
half-caste,  standing  serenely  in  the  doorway,  seemed  to 
understand  exactly  how  to  deal  with  clients  of  every  kind. 
He  took  from  the  creature  the  strapped  bundle  it  had 
been  hugging  closely  through  all  its  peregrinations  in  that 
strange  town,  and  cut  short  Schomberg's  attempts  at  ex- 
planation by  a  most  confident — 

"I  comprehend  very  well,  sir.'* 

"It's  more  than  I  do,"  thought  Schomberg,  going  away 
thankful  at  being  relieved  of  the  alligator-hunter's  com- 
pany. He  wondered  what  these  fellows  were,  without 
being  able  to  form  a  guess  of  sufficient  probability.  Their 
names  he  learned  that  very  day  by  direct  inquiry — ^"to 
enter  in  my  books,"  he  explained  in  his  formal  military 
manner,  chest  thrown  out,  beard  very  much  in  evidence. 

The  shaven  man,  sprawling  in  a  long  chair,  with  his 
air  of  withered  youth,  raised  his  eyes  languidly. 


VICTORY  99 

"My  name?  Oh,  plain  Mr.  Jones — put  that  down — a 
gentleman  at  large.  And  this  is  Ricardo."  The  pock-marked 
man,  lying  prostrate  in  another  long  chair,  made  a  grimace, 
as  if  something  had  tickled  the  end  of  his  nose,  but  did 
not  come  out  of  his  supineness.  ^'Martin  Ricardo,  secre- 
tary. You  don't  want  any  more  of  our  history,  do  you? 
Eh,  what?  Occupation?  Put  down,  well — tourists.  We've 
been  called  harder  names  before  now;  it  won't  hurt  our 
feelings.  And  that  fellow  of  mine — where  did  you  tuck 
him  away?  Oh,  he  will  be  all  right.  When  he  wants  any- 
thing he'll  take  it.  He's  Peter.  Citizen  of  Colombia,  Peter, 
Pedro — I  don't  know  that  he  ever  had  any  other  name. 
Pedro,  alligator-hunter.  Oh,  yes — I'll  pay  his  board  with 
the  half-caste.  Can't  help  myself.  He's  so  confoundedly 
devoted  to  me  that  if  I  were  to  give  him  the  sack  he  would 
fly  at  my  throat.  Shall  I  tell  you  how  I  killed  his  brother 
in  the  wilds  of  Colombia?  Well,  perhaps  some  other  time 
— it's  a  rather  long  story.  What  I  shall  always  regret 
is  that  I  didn't  kill  him,  too.  I  could  have  done  it  without 
any  extra  trouble  then ;  now  it's  too  late.  Great  nuisance ; 
but  he's  useful  sometimes.  I  hope  you  are  not  going  to 
put  all  this  in  your  book?" 

The  offhand,  hard  manner  and  the  contemptuous  tone 
of  "plain  Mr.  Jones"  disconcerted  Schomberg  utterly.  He 
had  never  been  spoken  to  like  this  in  his  life.  He  shook 
his  head  in  silence  and  withdrew,  not  exactly  scared — ' 
though  he  was  in  reality  of  a  timid  dispositon  under  his 
manly  exterior — ^but  distinctly  mystified  and  impressed. 


Three  weeks  later,  after  putting  his  cash-box  away 
in  the  safe  which  filled  with  its  iron  bulk  a  corner  of 
their  bedroom,  Schomberg  turned  towards  his  wife,  but 
without  looking  at  her  exactly,  and  said : 

"I  must  get  rid  of  these  two.  It  won't  do  !'* 

Mrs.  Schomberg  had  entertained  that  very  opinion 
from  the  first ;  but  she  had  been  broken  years  ago  into 
keeping  her  opinions  to  herself.  Sitting  in  her  night  attire 
in  the  light  of  a  single  candle,  she  was  careful  not  to  make 
a  sound,  knowing  from  experience  that  her  very  assent 
would  be  resented.  With  her  eyes  she  followed  the  figure 
of  Schomberg,  clad  in  his  sleeping  suit,  and  moving  rest- 
lessly about  the  room. 

He  never  glanced  her  way,  for  the  reason  that  Mrs. 
Schomberg,  in  her  night  attire,  looked  the  most  unattrac- 
tive object  in  existence — miserable,  insignificant,  faded, 
crushed,  old.  And  the  contrast  with  the  feminine  form 
he  had  ever  in  his  mind's  eye  made  his  wife's  appearance 
painful  to  his  esthetic  sense. 

Schomberg  walked  about  swearing  and  fuming  for  the 
purpose  of  screwing  his  courage  up  to  the  sticking  point. 

''Hang  me  if  I  ought  not  to  go  now,  at  once,  this 
minute,  into  his  bedroom,  and  tell  him  to  be  off — him 
and  that  secretary  of  his — early  in  the  morning.  I  don't 
mind  a  round  game  of  cards,  but  to  make  a  decoy  of  my 
table  d'hote — my  blood  boils !  He  came  here  because  some 
lying  rascal  in  Manila  told  him  I  kept  a  table  d'hote." 

He  said  these  things,  not  for  !Mrs.  Schomberg's  infor- 
mation, but  simply  thinking  aloud,  and  trying  to  work 

lOO 


VICTORY  loi 

his  fury  up  to  a  point  where  it  would  give  him  courage 
enough  to  face  "plain  Mr.  Jones." 

"Impudent,  overbearing,  swindling  sharper/'  he  went 
on.  "I  have  a  good  mind  to " 

He  was  beside  himself  in  his  lurid,  heavy,  Teutonic 
manner,  so  unlike  the  picturesque,  lively  rage  of  the  Latin 
races ;  and  though  his  eyes  strayed  about  irresolutely,  yet 
his  swollen,  angry  features  awakened  in  the  miserable 
woman  over  whom  he  had  been  tyrannising  for  years  a 
fear  for  his  precious  carcass,  since  the  poor  creature  had 
nothing  else  but  that  to  hold  on  to  in  the  world.  She 
knew  him  well ;  but  she  did  not  know  him  altogether.  The 
last  thing  a  woman  will  consent  to  discover  in  a  man  whom 
she  loves,  or  on  whom  she  simply  depends,  is  want  of 
courage.  And,  timid  in  her  corner,  she  ventured  to  say 
pressingly : 

"Be  careful,  Wilhelm !  Remember  the  knives  and  re- 
volvers in  their  trunks." 

In  guise  of  thanks  for  that  anxious  reminder,  he  swore 
horribly  in  the  direction  of  her  shrinking  person.  In  her 
scanty  night-dress,  and  barefooted,  she  recalled  a  mediae- 
val penitent  being  reproved  for  her  sins  in  blasphemous 
terms.  Those  lethal  weapons  were  always  present  to 
Schomberg's  mind.  Personally,  he  had  never  seen  them. 
His  part,  ten  days  after  his  guests'  arrival,  had  been  to 
lounge  in  manly,  careless  attitudes  on  the  verandah — 
keeping  watch — while  Mrs.  Schomberg,  provided  with  a 
bunch  of  assorted  keys,  her  discoloured  teeth  chattering 
and  her  globular  eyes  absolutely  idiotic  with  fright,  was 
"going  through"  the  luggage  of  these  strange  clients. 
Her  terrible  Wilhelm  had  insisted  on  it. 

"I'll  be  on  the  look-out,  I  tell  you,"  he  said.  "I  shall 
give  you  a  whistle  when  I  see  them  coming  back.  You 
couldn't  whistle.  And  if  he  were  to  catch  you  at  it,  and 
chuck  you  out  by  the  scruff  of  the  neck,  it  wouldn't  hurt 
you  much;  but  he  won't  touch  a  woman.  Not  he!  He 


I02  VICTORY 

has  told  me  so.  Affected  beast.  I  must  find  out  something 
about  their  httle  game,  and  so  there's  an  end  of  it.  Go 
in!  Go  now!  Quick  march!" 

It  had  been  an  awful  job;  but  she  did  go  in,  because 
she  was  much  more  afraid  of  Schomberg  than  of  any 
possible  consequences  of  the  act.  Her  greatest  concern 
was  lest  no  key  of  the  bunch  he  had  provided  her  with 
should  fit  the  locks.  It  would  have  been  such  a  disappoint- 
ment for  Wilhelm.  However,  the  trunks,  she  found,  had 
been  left  open;  but  her  investigation  did  not  last  long. 
She  was  frightened  of  firearms,  and  generally  of  all 
weapons,  not  from  personal  cowardice,  but  as  some  women 
are,  almost  superstitiously,  from  an  abstract  horror  of 
violence  and  murder.  She  was  out  again  on  the  verandah 
long  before  Wilhelm  had  any  occasion  for  a  warning 
whistle.  The  instinctive,  motiveless  fear  being  the  most 
difficult  to  overcome,  nothing  could  induce  her  to  return 
to  her  investigations,  neither  threatening  growls  nor  fero- 
cious hisses,  nor  yet  a  poke  or  two  in  the  ribs. 

**Stupid  female!''  muttered  the  hotel-keeper,  perturbed 
by  the  notion  of  that  armoury  in  one  of  his  bedrooms. 
This  w^as  from  no  abstract  sentiment;  with  him  it  was 
constitutional.  "Get  out  of  my  sight!"  he  snarled.  "Go 
and  dress  yourself  for  the  table  d'hote." 

Left  to  himself,  Schomberg  had  meditated.  What  the 
devil  did  this  mean  ?  His  thinking  processes  were  sluggish 
and  spasmodic ;  but  suddenly  the  truth  came  to  him. 

"By  heavens,  they  are  desperadoes !"  he  thought. 

Just  then  he  beheld  "plain  Mr.  Jones"  and  his  secretary 
with  the  ambiguous  name  of  Ricardo  entering  the  grounds 
of  the  hotel.  They  had  been  down  to  the  port  on  some 
business,  and  now  were  returning;  Mr.  Jones  lank,  spare, 
opening  his  long  legs  with  angular  regularity  like  a  pair 
of  compasses,  the  other  stepping  out  briskly  by  his  side. 
Conviction  entered  Schomberg's  heart.  They  were  two 
desperadoes — no  doubt  about  it.  But  as  the  funk  which 


VICTORY  103 

he  experienced  was  merely  a  general  sensation,  he 
managed  to  put  on  his  most  severe  Officer-of-the-Reserve 
manner,  long  before  they  had  closed  with  him. 

"Good  morning,  gentlemen/' 

Being  answered  with  derisive  civility,  he  became  con- 
firmed in  his  sudden  conviction  of  their  desperate  charac- 
ter. The  way  Mr.  Jones  turned  his  hollow  eyes  on  one, 
like  an  incurious  spectre,  and  the  way  the  other,  when 
addressed,  suddenly  retracted  his  lips  and  exhibited  his 
teeth  without  looking  round — ^here  was  evidence  enough 
to  settle  that  point.  Desperadoes.  They  passed  through 
the  billiard-room,  inscrutably  mysterious,  to  the  back  of 
the  house,  to  join  their  violated  trunks. 

"Tiffin  bell  will  ring  in  five  minutes,  gentlemen," 
Schomberg  called  after  them,  exaggerating  the  deep  man- 
liness of  his  tone. 

He  had  managed  to  upset  himself  very  much.  He  ex- 
pected to  see  them  come  back  infuriated  and  begin  to 
bully  him  with  an  odious  lack  of  restraint.  Desperadoes ! 
However  they  didn't;  they  had  not  noticed  anything  un- 
usual about  their  trunks  and  Schomberg  recovered  his 
composure  and  said  to  himself  that  he  must  get  rid  of 
this  deadly  incubus  as  soon  as  practicable.  They  couldn't 
possibly  want  to  stay  very  long;  this  was  not  the  town — 
the  colony — for  desperate  characters.  He  shrank  from 
action.  He  dreaded  any  kind  of  disturbance — "fracas," 
he  called  it — in  his  hotel.  Such  things  were  not  good  for 
business.  Of  course,  sometimes  one  had  to  have  a  "fracas"  ; 
but  it  had  been  a  comparatively  trifling  task  to  seize  the 
frail  Zangiacomo — whose  bones  were  no  larger  than  a 
chicken's — round  the  ribs,  lift  him  up  bodily,  dash  him 
to  the  ground,  and  fall  on  him.  It  had  been  easy.  The 
wretched,  hook-nosed  creature  lay  without  movement, 
buried  under  its  purple  beard. 

Suddenly,  remembering  the  occasion  of  that  "fracas," 
Schomberg  groaned  with  the  pain  as  of  a  hot  coal  under 


I04  VICTORY 

his  breastbone,  and  gave  himself  up  to  desolation.  Ah, 
if  he  only  had  that  girl  with  him  he  would  have  been 
masterful  and  resolute  and  fearless — fight  twenty  despe- 
radoes— care  for  nobody  on  earth!  Whereas  the  posses- 
sion of  Mrs.  Schomberg  was  no  incitement  to  a  display 
of  manly  virtues.  Instead  of  caring  for  no  one,  he  felt 
that  he  cared  for  nothing.  Life  was  a  hollow  sham ;  he 
wasn't  going  to  risk  a  shot  through  his  lungs  or  his  liver 
in  order  to  preserve  its  integrity.  It  had  no  savour — 
damn  it ! 

In  his  state  of  moral  decomposition,  Schomberg,  master 
as  he  was  of  the  art  of  hotel-keeping,  and  careful  of 
giving  no  occasion  for  criticism  to  the  powers  regulating 
that  branch  of  human  activities,  let  things  take  their 
course;  though  he  saw  very  well  where  that  course  was 
tending.  It  began  first  with  a  game  or  two  after  dinner 
— for  the  drinks,  apparently — with  some  lingering  cus- 
tomer, at  one  of  the  little  tables  ranged  against  the  walls 
of  the  billiard-room.  Schomberg  detected  the  meaning 
of  it  at  once.  That's  what  it  was!  This  was  what  they 
were!  And,  moving  about  restlessly  (at  that  time  his 
morose  silent  period  had  set  in),  he  cast  sidelong  looks 
at  the  game ;  but  he  said  nothing.  It  was  not  worth  while 
having  a  row  with  men  who  were  so  overbearing.  Even 
when  money  appeared  in  connection  with  these  postpran- 
dial games,  into  w^hich  more  and  more  people  were  being 
drawn,  he  still  refrained  from  raising  the  question;  he 
was  reluctant  to  draw  unduly  the  attention  of  ''plain  Mr. 
Jones"  and  of  the  equivocal  Ricardo,  to  his  person.  One 
evening,  however,  after  the  public  rooms  of  the  hotel 
had  become  empty,  Schomberg  made  an  attempt  to  grap- 
ple with  the  problem  in  an  indirect  way. 

In  the  distant  corner  the  tired  China  boy  dozed  on  his 
heels,  his  back  against  the  wall.  Mrs.  Schomberg  had  dis- 
appeared, as  usual,  between  ten  and  eleven.  Schomberg 
walked  about  slowly,  in  and  out  of  the  room  and  the 


VICTORY  los 

verandah,  thoughtful,  waiting  for  his  two  guests  to  go  to 
bed.  Then  suddenly  he  approached  them,  militarily,  his 
chest  thrown  out,  his  voice  curt  and  soldierly. 

"Hot  night,  gentlemen." 

Mr.  Jones,  lolling  back  idly  in  a  chair,  looked  up. 
Ricardo,  as  idle,  but  more  upright,  made  no  sign. 

*' Won't  you  have  a  drink  with  me  before  retiring?" 
went  on  Schomberg,  sitting  down  by  the  little  table. 

"By  all  means,"  said  Mr.  Jones  lazily. 

Ricardo  showed  his  teeth  in  a  strange,  quick  grin. 
Schomberg  felt  painfully  how  difficult  it  was  to  get  in 
touch  with  these  men,  both  so  quiet,  so  deliberate,  so 
menacingly  unceremonious.  He  ordered  the  Chinaman 
to  bring  in  the  drinks.  His  purpose  was  to  discover  how 
long  these  guests  intended  to  stay.  Ricardo  displayed  no 
conversational  vein,  but  Mr.  Jones  appeared  communica- 
tive enough.  His  voice  somehow  matched  his  sunken  eyes. 
It  was  hollow  without  being  in  the  least  mournful ;  it 
sounded  distant,  uninterested,  as  though  he  were  speak- 
ing from  the  bottom  of  a  well.  Schomberg  learned  that 
he  would  have  the  privilege  of  lodging  and  boarding  these 
gentlemen  for  at  least  a  month  more.  He  could  not  con- 
ceal his  discomfiture  at  this  piece  of  news. 

"What's  the  matter?  Don't  you  like  to  have  people  in 
your  house?"  asked  plain  Mr.  Jones  languidly.  "I  should 
have  thought  the  owner  of  a  hotel  would  be  pleased." 

He  lifted  his  delicate  and  beautifully  pencilled  eye- 
brows. Schomberg  muttered  something  about  the  locality 
being  dull  and  uninteresting  to  travellers — nothing  going 
on — too  quiet  altogether ;  but  he  only  provoked  the  decla- 
ration that  quiet  had  its  charms  sometimes,  and  even  dull- 
ness was  welcome  as  a  change. 

"We  haven't  had  time  to  be  dull  for  the  last  three 
years,"  added  plain  Mr.  Jones,  his  eyes  fixed  darkly  on 
Schomberg,  whom  he  furthermore  invited  to  have  another 
drink,  this  time  with  him,  and  not  to  worry  himself  about 


io6  VICTORY 

things  he  did  not  understand;  and  especially  not  to  be 
inhospitable — which  in  a  hotel-keeper  was  highly  unpro- 
fessional. 

''I  don't  understand,"  grumbled  Schomberg.  **Oh,  yes, 
I  understand  perfectly  well.  I '* 

"You  are  frightened,"  interrupted  Mr.  Jones.  "What 
is  the  matter?" 

"I  don't  want  any  scandal  in  my  place.  That's  what's 
the  matter." 

Schomberg  tried  to  face  the  situation  bravely,  but  that 
steady,  black  stare  affected  him.  And  when  he  glanced 
aside  uncomfortably,  he  met  Ricardo's  grin  uncovering  a 
lot  of  teeth,  though  the  man  seemed  absorbed  in  his 
thoughts  all  the  time. 

"And,  moreover,"  went  on  Mr.  Jones  in  that  distant 
tone  of  his,  "you  can't  help  yourself.  Here  we  are  and 
here  we  stay.  Would  you  try  to  put  us  out?  I  dare  say 
you  could  do  it;  but  you  couldn't  do  it  without  getting 
badly  hurt — very  badly  hurt.  We  can  promise  him  that, 
can't  we,  Martin?" 

The  secretary  retracted  his  lips  and  looked  up  sharply 
at  Schomberg,  as  if  only  too  anxious  to  leap  upon  him 
with  teeth  and  claws. 

Schomberg  managed  to  produce  a  deep  laugh. 

"Ha!  Ha!  Ha!" 

Mr.  Jones  closed  his  eyes  wearily,  as  if  the  light  hurt 
them,  and  looked  remarkably  like  a  corpse  for  a  moment. 
This  was  bad  enough;  but  when  he  opened  them  again, 
it  was  almost  a  worse  trial  for  Schomberg's  nerves.  The 
spectral  intensity  of  that  glance,  fixed  on  the  hotel-keeper 
(and  this  was  most  frightful),  without  any  definite  ex- 
pression, seemed  to  dissolve  the  last  grain  of  resolution 
in  his  character. 

"You  don't  think,  by  any  chance,  that  you  have  to  do 
with  ordinary  people,  do  you?"  inquired  Mr.  Jones,  in 


VICTORY  107 

his  lifeless  manner,  which  seemed  to  imply  some  sort  of 
menace  from  beyond  the  grave. 

"He's  a  gentleman,"  testified  Martin  Ricardo  with  a 
sudden  snap  of  the  lips,  after  which  his  moustaches  stirred 
by  themselves  in  an  odd,  feline  manner. 

"Oh,  I  wasn't  thinking  of  that,"  said  plain  Mr.  Jones, 
while  Schomberg,  dumb  and  planted  heavily  in  his  chair, 
looked  from  one  to  the  other,  leaning  forward  a  little. 
"Of  course  I  am  that;  but  Ricardo  attaches  too  much 
importance  to  a  social  advantage.  What  I  mean,  for  in- 
stance, is  that  he,  quiet  and  inoffensive  as  you  see  him 
sitting  here,  would  think  nothing  of  setting  fire  to  this 
house  of  entertainment  of  yours.  It  would  blaze  like  a 
box  of  matches.  Think  of  that !  It  wouldn't  advance  your 
affairs  much,  would  it? — whatever  happened  to  us." 

"Come,  come,  gentlemen,"  remonstrated  Schomberg  in 
a  murmur.  "This  is  very  wild  talk !" 

"And  you  have  been  used  to  deal  with  tame  people, 
haven't  you?  But  we  aren't  tame.  We  once  kept  a  whole 
angry  town  at  bay  for  two  days,  and  then  we  got  away 
with  our  plunder.  It  was  in  Venezuela.  Ask  Martin  here 
— he  can  tell  you." 

Instinctively  Schomberg  looked  at  Ricardo,  who  only 
passed  the  tip  of  his  tongue  over  his  lips  with  an  un- 
canny sort  of  gusto,  but  did  not  offer  to  begin. 

"Well,  perhaps  it  would  be  a  rather  long  story,"  Mr. 
Jones  conceded  after  a  short  silence. 

"I  have  no  desire  to  hear  it,  I  am  sure,"  said  Schom- 
berg. "This  isn't  Venezuela.  You  wouldn't  get  away  from 
here  like  that.  But  all  this  is  silly  talk  of  the  worst  sort. 
Do  you  mean  to  say  you  would  make  deadly  trouble  for 
the  sake  of  a  few  guilders  that  you  and  that  other" — 
eyeing  Ricardo  suspiciously,  as  one  would  look  at  a 
strange  animal — "gentleman  can  win  of  an  evening? 
'Tisn't  as  if  my  customers  were  a  lot  of  rich  men  with 


io8  VICTORY 

pockets  full  of  cash.  I  wonder  you  take  so  much  trouble 
and  risk  for  so  little  money." 

Schomberg's  argument  was  met  by  Mr.  Jones's  state- 
ment that  one  must  do  something  to  kill  time.  Killing 
time  was  not  forbidden.  For  the  rest,  being  in  a  com- 
municative mood,  Mr.  Jones  said  languidly  and  in  a  voice 
indifferent,  as  if  issuing  from  a  tomb,  that  he  depended 
on  himself,  as  if  the  w^orld  were  still  one  great,  wild 
jungle  without  law.  Martin  was  something  like  that,  too — 
for  reasons  of  his  own. 

All  these  statements  Ricardo  confirmed  by  short,  in- 
human grins.  Schomberg  lowered  his  eyes,  for  the  sight 
of  these  two  men  intimidated  him;  but  he  was  losing 
patience. 

''Of  course,  I  could  see  at  once  that  you  were  two  des- 
perate characters — something  like  what  you  say.  But  w^hat 
would  you  think  if  I  told  you  that  I  am  pretty  near  as 
desperate  as  you  two  gentlemen?  'Here's  that  Schomberg 
has  an  easy  time  running  his  hotel,'  people  think ;  and  yet 
it  seems  to  me  I  would  just  as  soon  let  you  rip  me  open 
and  burn  the  whole  show  as  not.  There!" 

A  low  whistle  was  heard.  It  came  from  Ricardo,  and 
was  derisive.  Schomberg,  breathing  heavily,  looked  on 
the  floor.  He  was  really  desperate.  Mr.  Jones  remained 
languidly  sceptical. 

"Tut,  tut !  You  have  a  tolerable  business.  You  are  per- 
fectly tame ;  you "  He  paused,  then  added  in  a  tone 

of  disgust :  "You  have  a  wife." 

Schomberg  tapped  the  floor  angrily  with  his  foot  and 
uttered  an  indistinct,  laughing  curse. 

"What  do  you  mean  by  flinging  that  damned  trouble 
at  my  head?"  he  cried.  'T  wish  you  would  carry  her  off 
with  you  somewhere  to  the  devil !  I  wouldn't  run  after 
you." 

The  unexpected  outburst  affected  Mr.  Jones  strangely. 


VICTORY  109 

He  had  a  horrified  recoil,  chair  and  all,  as  if  Schomberg 
had  thrust  a  wriggling  viper  in  his  face. 

"What's  this  infernal  nonsense?"  he  muttered  thickly. 
"What  do  you  mean?  How  dare  you?" 

Ricardo  chuckled  audibly. 

"I  tell  you  I  am  desperate,"  Schomberg  repeated.  "I 
am  as  desperate  as  any  man  ever  was.  I  don't  care  a 
hang  what  happens  to  me !" 

"Well,  then" — Mr.  Jones  began  to  speak  with  a  quietly 
threatening  effect,  as  if  the  common  words  of  daily  use 
had  some  other  deadly  meaning  to  his  mind — "well,  then, 
why  should  you  make  yourself  ridiculously  disagreeable 
to  us?  li  you  don't  care,  as  you  say,  you  might  just  as 
well  let  us  have  the  key  of  that  music-shed  of  yours  for 
a  quiet  game ;  a  modest  bank — a  dozen  candles  or  so.  It 
would  be  greatly  appreciated  by  your  clients,  as  far  as  I 
can  judge  from  the  way  they  betted  on  a  game  of  ecarte 
I  had  with  that  fair,  baby-faced  man — what's  his  name? 
They  just  yearn  for  a  modest  bank.  And  I  am  afraid 
Martin  here  would  take  it  badly  if  you  objected;  but  of 
course  you  won't.  Think  of  the  calls  for  drinks !" 

Schomberg,  raising  his  eyes  at  last,  met  the  gleams  in 
two  dark  caverns  under  Mr.  Jones's  devilish  eyebrows, 
directed  upon  him  impenetrably.  He  shuddered  as  if  hor- 
rors worse  than  murder  had  been  lurking  there,  and  said, 
nodding  towards  Ricardo : 

"I  dare  say  he  wouldn't  think  twice  about  sticking  me, 
if  he  had  you  at  his  back!  I  wish  I  had  sunk  my  launch, 
and  gone  to  the  bottom  myself  in  her,  before  I  boarded 
the  steamer  you  came  by.  Ah,  well,  I've  been  already 
living  in  hell  for  weeks,  so  you  don't  make  much  differ- 
ence. I'll  let  you  have  the  concert-room — and  hang  the 
consequences.  But  what  about  the  boy  on  late  duty?  If 
he  sees  cards  and  actual  money  passing,  he  will  be  sure 
to  blab,  and  it  will  be  all  over  the  town  in  no  time." 

A  ghastly  smile  stirred  the  lips  of  Mr.  Jones. 


no  VICTORY 

"Ah,  I  see  you  want  to  make  a  success  of  it.  Very  good. 
That's  the  way  to  get  on.  Don't  let  it  disturb  you.  You 
chase  all  the  Chinamen  to  bed  early,  and  we'll  get  Pedro 
here  every  evening.  He  isn't  the  conventional  waiter's 
cut,  but  he  will  do  to  run  to  and  fro  with  the  tray,  while 
you  sit  here  from  nine  to  eleven  serving  out  drinks  and 
gathering  the  money.'* 

'There  will  be  three  of  them  now,"  thought  the  unlucky 
Schomberg. 

But  Pedro,  at  any  rate,  was  just  a  simple,  straightfor- 
ward brute,  if  a  murderous  one.  There  was  no  mystery 
about  him,  nothing  uncanny,  no  suggestion  of  a  stealthy, 
deliberate  wild-cat  turned  into  a  man,  or  of  an  insolent 
spectre  on  leave  from  Hades,  endowed  with  skin  and 
bones  and  a  subtle  power  of  terror.  Pedro  with  his  fangs, 
his  tangled  beard  and  queer  stare  of  his  little  bear's  eyes 
was,  by  comparison,  delightfully  natural.  Besides,  Schom- 
berg could  no  longer  help  himself. 

'That  will  do  very  well,"  he  assented  mournfully. 
"But  mind,  gentlemen,  if  you  had  turned  up  here  only 
three  months  ago — ay,  less  than  three  months  ago — ^you 
would  have  found  somebody  very  different  from  what  I 
am  now  to  talk  to  you.  It's  true.  What  do  you  think  of 
that?" 

"I  scarcely  know  what  to  think.  I  should  think  it  was 
a  lie.  You  were  probably  as  tame  three  months  ago  as 
you  are  now.  You  were  born  tame,  like  most  people  in 
the  world." 

Mr.  Jones  got  up  spectrally,  and  Ricardo  imitated  him 
with  a  snarl  and  a  stretch.  Schomberg,  in  a  brown  study, 
went  on,  as  if  to  himself : 

"There  has  been  an  orchestra  here — eighteen  women." 

Mr.  Jones  let  out  an  exclamation  of  dismay,  and  looked 
about  as  if  the  walls  around  him  and  the  whole  house 
had  been  infected  with  plague.  Then  he  became  very 
-angry,  and  swore  violently  at  Schomberg  for  daring  to 


VICTORY  lit 

bring  up  such  subjects.  The  hotel-keeper  was  too  much 
surprised  to  get  up.  He  gazed  from  his  chair  at  Mr. 
Jones's  anger,  which  had  nothing  spectral  in  it,  but  was 
not  the  more  comprehensible  for  that. 

"What's  the  matter?"  he  stammered  out.  "What  sub- 
ject? Didn't  you  hear  me  say  it  was  an  orchestra?  There's 
nothing  wrong  in  that.  Well,  there  was  a  girl  amongst 

them "  Schomberg's  eyes  went  stony;  he  clasped  his 

hands  in  front  of  his  breast  with  such  force  that  his 
knuckles  came  out  white.  "Such  a  girl!  Tame,  am  I?  I 
would  have  kicked  everything  to  pieces  about  me  for  her. 
And  she,  of  course.  ...  I  am  in  the  prime  of  life.  .  .  . 
Then  a  fellow  bewitched  her — a  vagabond,  a  false,  lying, 
swindling,  underhand,  stick-at-nothing  brute.  Ah!" 

His  entwined  fingers  cracked  as  he  tore  his  hands  apart, 
flung  out  his  arms,  and  leaned  his  forehead  on  them  in  a 
passion  of  fury.  The  other  two  looked  at  his  shaking  back 
— the  attenuated  Mr.  Jones  with  mingled  scorn  and  a  sort 
of  fear,  Ricardo  with  the  expression  of  a  cat  which  sees 
a  piece  of  fish  in  the  pantry  out  of  reach.  Schomberg 
flung  himself  backwards.  He  was  dry-eyed,  but  he  gulped 
as  if  swallowing  sobs. 

"No  wonder  you  can  do  with  me  what  you  like.  You 
have  no  idea — just  let  me  tell  you  of  my  trouble " 

"I  don't  want  to  know  anything  of  your  beastly  trouble," 
said  Mr.  Jones,  in  his  most  lifelessly  positive  voice. 

He  stretched  forth  an  arresting  hand,  and,  as  Schomberg 
remained  open-mouthed,  he  walked  out  of  the  billiard- 
room  in  all  the  uncanniness  of  his  thin  shanks.  Ricardo 
followed  at  his  leader's  heels;  but  he  showed  his  teeth 
to  Schomberg  over  his  shoulder. 


VI 

From  that  evening  dated  those  mysterious  but  signifi- 
cant phenomena  in  Schomberg's  establishment  which  at- 
tracted Captain  Davidson's  casual  notice  when  he  dropped 
in,  placid  yet  astute,  in  order  to  return  Mrs.  Schomberg's 
Indian  shawl.  And,  strangely  enough,  they  lasted  some 
considerable  time.  It  argued  either  honesty  and  bad  luck 
or  extraordinary  restraint  on  the  part  of  "plain  Mr.  Jones 
and  Co."  in  their  discreet  operations  with  cards. 

It  was  a  curious  and  impressive  sight,  the  inside  of 
Schomberg's  concert-hall,  encumbered  at  one  end  by  a 
great  stack  of  chairs  piled  up  on  and  about  the  musicians' 
platform,  and  lighted  at  the  other  by  two  dozen  candles 
disposed  about  a  long  trestle  table  covered  w4th  green 
cloth.  In  the  middle,  Mr.  Jones,  a  starved  spectre  turned 
into  a  banker,  faced  Ricardo,  a  rather  nasty,  slow-moving 
cat  turned  into  a  croupier.  By  contrast,  the  other  faces 
round  that  table,  anything  between  twenty  and  thirty, 
must  have  looked  like  collected  samples  of  intensely  art- 
less, helpless  humanity — pathetic  in  their  innocent  watch 
for  the  small  turns  of  luck  which  indeed  might  have 
been  serious  enough  for  them.  They  had  no  notice  to 
spare  for  the  hairy  Pedro,  carrying  a  tray  with  the  clum- 
siness of  a  creature  caught  in  the  woods  and  taught  to 
walk  on  its  hind  legs. 

As  to  Schomberg,  he  kept  out  of  the  way.  He  remained 
in  the  billiard-room,  serving  out  drinks  to  the  unspeakable 
Pedro  with  an  air  of  not  seeing  the  growling  monster,  of 
not  knowing  where  the  drinks  went,  of  ignoring  that  there 
was  such  a  thing  as  a  music-room  over  there  under  the 

XI2 


VICTORY  113 

trees  within  fifty  yards  of  the  hotel.  He  submitted  himself 
to  the  situation  with  a  low-spirited  stoicism  compounded 
of  fear  and  resignation.  Directly  the  party  had  broken 
up  (he  could  see  dark  shapes  of  the  men  drifting  singly 
and  in  knots  through  the  gate  of  the  compound),  he  would 
withdraw  out  of  sight  behind  a  door  not  quite  closed,  in 
order  to  avoid  meeting  his  two  extraordinary  guests ;  but 
he  would  watch  through  the  crack  their  contrasted  forms 
pass  through  the  billiard-room  and  disappear  on  their  way 
to  bed.  Then  he  would  hear  doors  being  slammed  upstairs ; 
and  a  profound  silence  would  fall  upon  the  whole  house, 
upon  his  hotel  appropriated,  haunted  by  those  insolently 
outspoken  men  provided  with  a  whole  armoury  of  weap- 
ons in  their  trunks.  A  profound  silence.  Schomberg 
sometimes  could  not  resist  the  notion  that  he  must  be 
dreaming.  Shuddering,  he  would  pull  himself  together, 
and  creep  out,  with  movements  strangely  inappropriate 
to  the  Lieutenant-of-the-Reserve  bearing  by  which  he 
tried  to  keep  up  his  self-respect  before  the  world. 

A  great  loneliness  oppressed  him.  One  after  another 
he  would  extinguish  the  lamps,  and  move  softly  towards 
his  bedroom,  where  Mrs.  Schomberg  waited  for  him — 
no  fit  companion  for  a  man  of  his  ability  and  "in  the 
prime  of  life."  But  that  life,  alas,  was  blighted.  He  felt 
it;  and  never  with  such  force  as  when  on  opening  the 
door  he  perceived  that  woman  sitting  patiently  in  a  chair, 
her  toes  peeping  out  under  the  edge  of  her  night-dress, 
an  amazingly  small  amount  of  hair  on  her  head  drooping 
on  the  long  stalk  of  scraggy  neck,  with  that  everlasting 
scared  grin  showing  a  blue  tooth  and  meaning  nothing — 
not  even  real  fear.  For  she  was  used  to  him. 

Sometimes  he  was  tempted  to  screw  the  head  off  the 
stalk.  He  imagined  himself  doing  it — with  one  hand,  a 
twisting  movement.  Not  seriously,  of  course.  Just  a  simple 
indulgence  for  his  exasperated  feelings.  He  wasn't  capable 
of  murder.  He  was  certain  of  that.  And,  remembering 


114  VICTORY 

suddenly  the  plain  speeches  of  Mr.  Jones,  he  would  think : 
"I  suppose  I  am  too  tame  for  that" — quite  unaware  that 
he  had  murdered  the  poor  woman  morally  years  ago.  He 
was  too  unintelligent  to  have  the  notion  of  such  a  crime. 
Her  bodily  presence  was  bitterly  offensive,  because  of  its 
contrast  with  a  very  different  feminine  image.  And  it  was 
no  use  getting  rid  of  her.  She  was  a  habit  of  years,  and 
there  would  be  nothing  to  put  in  her  place.  At  any  rate, 
he  could  talk  to  that  idiot  half  the  night  if  he  chose. 

That  night  he  had  been  vapouring  before  her  as  to 
his  intention  to  face  his  two  guests  and,  instead  of  that 
inspiration  he  needed,  had  merely  received  the  usual  warn- 
ing: "Be  careful,  Wilhelm."  He  did  not  want  to  be  told 
to  be  careful  by  an  imbecile  female.  What  he  needed  was 
a  pair  of  woman's  arms  which,  flung  round  his  neck, 
would  brace  him  up  for  the  encounter.  Inspire  him,  he 
called  it  to  himself. 

He  lay  awake  a  long  time;  and  his  slumbers,  when 
they  came,  were  unsatisfactory  and  short.  The  morning 
light  had  no  joy  for  his  eyes.  He  listened  dismally  to  the 
movements  in  the  house.  The  Chinamen  were  unlocking 
and  flinging  wide  the  doors  of  the  public  rooms  which 
opened  on  the  verandah.  Horrors !  Another  poisoned  day 
to  get  through  somehow!  The  recollection  of  his  resolve 
made  him  feel  actually  sick  for  a  moment.  First  of  all 
the  lordly,  abandoned  attitudes  of  Mr.  Jones  disconcerted 
him.  Then  there  was  his  contemptuous  silence.  Mr.  Jones 
never  addressed  himself  to  Schomberg  with  any  general 
remarks,  never  opened  his  lips  to  him  unless  to  say  "Good 
morning" — ^two  simple  words  which,  uttered  by  that  man, 
seemed  a  mockery  of  a  threatening  character.  And,  lastly, 
it  was  not  a  frank  physical  fear  he  inspired — for,  as  to 
that,  even  a  cornered  rat  will  fight — but  a  superstitious 
shrinking  awe,  something  like  an  invincible  repugnance 
to  seek  speech  with  a  wicked  ghost.  That  it  was  a  daylight 


VICTORY  115 

ghost,  surprisingly  angular  in  his  attitudes,  and  for  the 
most  part  spread  out  on  three  chairs,  did  not  make  it  any 
easier.  Daylight  only  made  him  a  more  weird,  a  more  dis- 
turbing and  unlawful  apparition.  Strangely  enough  in  the 
evening,  when  he  came  out  of  his  mute  supineness,  this 
unearthly  side  of  him  was  less  obtrusive.  At  the  gaming- 
table, when  actually  handling  the  cards,  it  was  probably 
sunk  quite  out  of  sight ;  but  Schomberg,  having  made  up 
his  mind  in  ostrich-like  fashion  to  ignore  what  was  going 
on,  never  entered  the  desecrated  music-room.  He  had 
never  seen  Mr.  Jones  in  the  exercise  of  his  vocation — or 
perhaps  it  was  only  his  trade. 

"I  will  speak  to  him  to-night,"  Schomberg  said  to 
himself,  while  he  drank  his  morning  tea,  in  pyjamas,  on 
the  verandah,  before  the  rising  sun  had  topped  the  trees 
of  the  compound,  and  while  the  undried  dew  still  lay  sil- 
very on  the  grass,  sparkled  on  the  blossoms  of  the  central 
flower-bed,  and  darkened  the  yellow  gravel  of  the  drive. 
"That's  what  111  do.  I  won't  keep  out  of  sight  to-night. 
I  shall  come  out  and  catch  him  as  he  goes  to  bed  carrying 
the  cash-box." 

After  all,  what  was  the  fellow  but  a  common  desper- 
ado ?  Murderous  ?  Oh,  yes ;  murderous  enough,  perhaps — 
and  the  muscles  of  Schomberg's  stomach  had  a  quiv- 
ering contraction  under  his  airy  attire.  But  even  a  com- 
mon desperado  would  think  twice  or,  more  likely,  a 
hundred  times,  before  openly  murdering  an  inoffensive 
citizen  in  a  civilised,  European-ruled"  town.  He  jerked 
his  shoulders.  Of  course !  He  shuddered  again,  and 
paddled  back  to  his  room  to  dress  himself.  His  mind  was 
made  up,  and  he  would  think  no  more  about  it;  but  still 
he  had  his  doubts.  They  grew  and  unfolded  themselves 
with  the  progress  of  the  day,  as  some  plants  do.  At  times 
they  made  him  perspire  more  than  usual,  and  they  did 
away  with  the  possibility  of  his  afternoon  siesta.    After 


ii6  VICTORY 

turning  over  on  his  couch  more  than  a  dozen  times,  he 
gave  up  this  mockery  of  repose,  got  up,  and  went  down- 
stairs. 

It  was  between  three  and  four  o'clock,  the  hour  of 
profound  peace.  The  very  flowers  seemed  to  doze  on 
their  stalks  set  with  sleepy  leaves.  Not  even  the  air  stirred, 
for  the  sea-breeze  was  not  due  till  later.  The  servants 
were  out  of  sight,  catching  naps  in  the  shade  somewhere 
behind  the  house.  Mrs.  Schomberg,  in  a  dim  upstairs 
room  with  closed  jalousies,  was  elaborating  those  two 
long  pendent  ringlets  which  were  such  a  feature  of  her 
hair-dressing  for  her  afternoon  duties.  At  that  time  no 
customers  ever  troubled  the  repose  of  the  establishment. 
Wandering  about  his  premises  in  profound  solitude, 
Schomberg  recoiled  at  the  door  of  the  billiard-room,  as 
if  he  had  seen  a  snake  in  his  path.  All  alone  with  the 
billiards,  the  bare  little  tables,  and  a  lot  of  untenanted 
chairs,  Mr.  Secretary  Ricardo  sat  near  the  wall,  perform- 
ing with  lightning  rapidity  something  that  looked  like 
tricks  with  his  own  personal  pack  of  cards,  which  he 
always  carried  about  in  his  pocket.  Schomberg  would  have 
backed  out  quietly  if  Ricardo  had  not  turned  his  head. 
Having  been  seen,  the  hotel-keeper  elected  to  walk  in  as 
the  lesser  risk  of  the  two.  The  consciousness  of  his 
inwardly  abject  attitude  towards  these  men  caused  him 
always  to  throw  his  chest  out  and  assume  a  severe  ex- 
pression. Ricardo  watched  his  approach,  clasping  the  pack 
of  cards  in  both  hands. 

"You  want  something,  perhaps?"  suggested  Schom- 
berg in  his  Lieutenant-of-the-Reserve  voice. 

Ricardo  shook  his  head  in  silence  and  looked  ex- 
pectant. With  him  Schomberg  exchanged  at  least  twenty 
words  every  day.  He  was  infinitely  more  communicative 
than  his  patron.  At  times  he  looked  very  much  like  an 
ordinary  human  being  of  his  class ;  and  he  seemed  to  be 
in  an  amiable  mood  at  that  moment.  Suddenly  spreading 


VICTORY  117 

some  ten  cards  face  downward  in  the  form  of  a  fan,  he 
thrust  them  towards  Schomberg. 

"Come,  man,  take  one  quick!" 

Schomberg  was  so  surprised  that  he  took  one  hur- 
riedly, after  a  very  perceptible  start.  The  eyes  of  Martin 
Ricardo  gleamed  phosphorescent  in  the  half-light  of  the 
room  screened  from  the  heat  and  glare  of  the  tropics. 

"That's  a  king  of  hearts  you've  got,"  he  chuckled, 
showing  his  teeth  in  a  quick  flash. 

Schomberg,  after  looking  at  the  card,  admitted  that  it 
was,  and  laid  it  down  on  the  table. 

"I  can  make  you  take  any  card  I  like  nine  times  out 
of  ten,"  exulted  the  secretary,  with  a  strange  curl  of  his 
lips  and  a  green  flicker  in  his  raised  eyes. 

Schomberg  looked  down  at  him  dumbly.  For  a  few 
seconds  neither  of  them  stirred;  then  Ricardo  lowered 
his  glance,  and,  opening  his  fingers,  let'  the  whole  pack 
fall  on  the  table.  Schomberg  sat  down.  He  sat  down 
because  of  the  faintness  in  his  legs,  and  for  no  other 
reason.  His  mouth  was  dry.  Having  sat  down,  he  felt 
that  he  must  speak.  He  squared  his  shoulders  in  parade 
style. 

"You  are  pretty  good  at  that  sort  of  thing,"  he  said. 

"Practice   makes   perfect,"    replied   the   secretary. 

His  precarious  amiability  made  it  impossible  for 
Schomberg  to  get  away.  Thus,  from  his  very  timidity, 
the  hotel-keeper  found  himself  engaged  in  a  conversation 
the  thought  of  which  had  filled  him  with  apprehension. 
It  must  be  said,  in  justice  to  Schomberg,  that  he  concealed 
his  funk  very  creditably.  The  habit  of  throwing  out  his 
chest  and  speaking  in  a  severe  voice  stood  him  in  good 
stead.  With  him,  too,  practice  made  perfect;  and  he 
would  probably  have  kept  it  up  to  the  end,  to  the  very 
last  moment,  to  the  ultimate  instant  of  breaking  strain 
which  would  leave  him  grovelling  on  the  floor.  To  add 


ii8  VICTORY 

to  his  secret  trouble,  he  was  at  a  loss  what  to  say.  He 
found  nothing  else  but  the  remark : 

"I  suppose  you  are  fond  of  cards." 

''What  would  you  expect?"  asked  Ricardo  in  a  simple, 
philosophical  tone.  "Is  it  likely  I  should  not  be?"  Then, 
with  sudden  fire:  "Fond  of  cards?  Ay,  passionately!" 

The  effect  of  this  outburst  was  augmented  by  the 
quiet  lowering  of  the  eyelids,  by  a  reserved  pause  as 
though  this  had  been  a  confession  of  another  kind  of  love. 
Schomberg  cudgelled  his  brains  for  a  new  topic,  but  he 
could  not  find  one.  His  usual  scandalous  gossip  would 
not  serve  this  turn.  That  desperado  did  not  know  any  one 
anywhere  within  a  thousand  miles.  Schomberg  was  almost 
compelled  to  keep  to  the  subject. 

"I  suppose  youVe  always  been  so — from  your  early 
youth." 

Ricardo's  eyes  remained  cast  down.  His  fingers  toyed 
absently  with  the  pack  on  the  table. 

"I  don't  know  that  it  was  so  early.  I  first  got  in  the 
way  of  it  playing  for  tobacco — in  forecastles  of  ships, 
you  know — common  sailor  games.  We  used  to  spend 
whole  watches  below  at  it,  round  a  chest,  under  a  slush 
lamp.  We  would  hardly  spare  the  time  to  get  a  bite  of 
salt  horse — ^neither  eat  nor  sleep.  We  could  hardly  stand 
when  the  watches  were  mustered  on  deck.  Talk  of  gam- 
bling!" He  dropped  the  reminiscent  tone  to  add  the  in- 
formation, "I  was  bred  to  the  sea  from  a  boy,  you  know." 

Schomberg  had  fallen  into  a  reverie,  but  without  losing 
the  sense  of  impending  calamity.  The  next  words  he  heard 
were: 

"I  got  on  all  right  at  sea,  too.  Worked  up  to  be  mate. 
I  was  mate  of  a  schooner — a  yacht,  you  might  call  her — 
a  special  good  berth  too,  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  a  soft 
job  that  you  don't  run  across  more  than  once  in  a  lifetime. 
Yes,  I  was  mate  of  her  when  I  left  the  sea  to  follow 
him." 


VICTORY  119 

Ricardo  tossed  up  his  chin  to  indicate  the  room  above ; 
from  which  Schomberg,  his  wits  painfully  aroused  by 
this  reminder  of  Mr.  Jones's  existence,  concluded  that 
the  latter  had  withdrawn  into  his  bedroom.  Ricardo,  ob- 
serving him  from  under  lowered  eyelids,  went  on : 

"It  so  happened  that  we  were  shipmates.'' 

"Mr.  Jones,  you  mean?  Is  he  a  sailor  too?" 

Ricardo  raised  his  eyelids  at  that. 

"He's  no  more  Mr.  Jones  than  you  are,"  he  said  with 
obvious  pride.  "He  a  sailor!  That  just  shows  your  igno- 
rance. But  there !  A  foreigner  can't  be  expected  to  know 
any  better.  I  am  an  Englishman,  and  I  know  a  gentle- 
man at  sight.  I  should  know  one  drunk,  in  the  gutter,  in 
jail,  under  the  gallows.  There's  a  something — it  isn't 
exactly  the  appearance,  it's  a — ^no  use  me  trying  to  tell 
you.  You  ain't  an  Englishman;  and  if  you  were,  you 
wouldn't  need  to  be  told." 

An  unsuspected  stream  of  loquacity  had  broken  its 
dam  somewhere  deep  within  the  man,  had  diluted  his 
fiery  blood  and  softened  his  pitiless  fibre.  Schomberg 
experienced  mingled  relief  and  apprehension,  as  if  sud- 
denly an  enormous  savage  cat  had  begun  to  wind  itself 
about  his  legs  in  inexplicable  friendliness.  No  prudent 
man  under  such  circumstances  would  dare  to  stir.  Schom- 
berg didn't  stir.  Ricardo  assumed  an  easy  attitude,  with 
an  elbow  on  the  table.  Schomberg  squared  his  shoulders 
afresh. 

"I  was  employed,  in  that  there  yacht — schooner,  what- 
ever you  call  it — by  ten  gentlemen  at  once.  That  surprises 
you,  eh?  Yes,  yes,  ten.  Leastwise  there  were  nine  of  them 
gents  good  enough  in  their  way,  and  one  downright 
gentleman,  and  that  was   ..." 

Ricardo  gave  another  upward  jerk  of  his  chin  as  much 
as  to  say:  He!  The  only  one. 

"And  no  mistake,"  he  went  on.  "I  spotted  him  from 
the  first  day.   How?  Why?  Ay,  you  may  ask.   Hadn't 


I20  VICTORY 

seen  that  many  gentlemen  in  my  life.  Well,  somehow  I 
did.  If  you  were  an  Englishman,  you  would " 

"What  was  your  yacht?"  Schomberg  interrupted  as 
impatiently  as  he  dared ;  for  this  harping  on  nationality 
jarred  on  his  already  tried  nerves.  "What  was  the 
game?" 

"You  have  a  headpiece  on  you !  Game !  'Xactly.  That's 
what  it  was — the  sort  of  silliness  gentlemen  will  get  up 
among  themselves  to  play  at  adventure.  A  treasure- 
hunting  expedition.  Each  of  them  put  down  so  much 
money,  you  understand,  to  buy  the  schooner.  Their  agent 
in  the  city  engaged  me  and  the  skipper.  The  greatest 
secrecy  and  all  that.  I  reckon  he  had  a  twinkle  in  his  eye 
all  the  time — and  no  mistake.  But  that  wasn't  our  busi- 
ness. Let  them  bust  their  money  as  they  like.  The  pity 
of  it  was  that  so  little  of  it  came  our  way.  Just  fair  pay 
and  no  more.  And  damn  any  pay,  much  or  little,  anyhow 
—that's  what  I  say!" 

He  blinked  his  eyes  greenishly  in  the  dim  light.  The 
heat  seemed  to  have  stilled  everything  in  the  world  but 
his  voice.  He  swore  at  large,  abundantly,  in  snarling 
undertones,  it  was  impossible  to  say  why;  then  calmed 
down  as  inexplicably  and  went  on,  as  a  sailor  yarns. 

"At  first  there  were  only  nine  of  them  adventurous 
sparks;  then,  just  a  day  or  two  before  the  sailing  date, 
he  turned  up.  Heard  of  it  somehow,  somewhere — I  would 
say  from  some  woman,  if  I  didn't  know  him  as  I  do. 
He  would  give  any  woman  a  ten-mile  berth.  He  can't 
stand  them.  Or  maybe  in  a  flash  bar.  Or  maybe  in  one 
of  them  grand  clubs  in  Pall  Mall.  Anyway  the  agent 
netted  him  in  all  right — cash  down,  and  only  about  four 
and  twenty  hours  for  him  to  get  ready;  but  he  didn't 
miss  his  ship.  Not  he!  You  might  have  called  it  a  pier- 
head jump — for  a  gentleman.  I  saw  him  come  along. 
Know  the  West  India  Docks,  eh?" 

Schomberg    did    not    know    the    West    India    Docks. 


VICTORY  121 

Ricardo  looked  at  him  pensively  for  a  while,  and  then 
continued,  as  if  such  ignorance  had  to  be  disregarded. 

*'Our  tug  was  already  alongside.  Two  loafers  were 
carrying  his  dunnage  behind  him.  I  told  the  dockmen  at 
our  moorings  to  keep  all  fast  for  a  minute.  The  gangway 
was  down  already;  but  he  made  nothing  of  it.  Up  he 
jumps,  one  leap,  swings  his  long  legs  over  the  rail,  and 
there  he  is  on  board.  They  pass  up  his  swell  dunnage, 
and  he  puts  his  hand  in  his  trousers  pocket  and  throws 
all  his  small  change  on  the  wharf  for  them  chaps  to  pick 
up.  They  were  still  promenading  that  wharf  on  all  fours 
when  we  cast  off.  It  was  only  then  that  he  looked  at  me — 
quietly,  you  know ;  in  a  slow  way.  He  wasn't  so  thin  then 
as  he  is  now;  but  I  noticed  he  wasn't  so  young  as  he 
looked — not  by  a  long  chalk.  He  seemed  to  touch  me 
inside  somewhere.  I  went  away  pretty  quick  from  there; 
I  was  wanted  forward  anyhow.  I  wasn't  frightened. 
What  should  I  be  frightened  for?  I  only  felt  touched — 
on  the  very  spot.  But  Jee-miny,  if  anybody  had  told  me 
we  should  be  partners  before  the  year  was  out — well,  I 
would  have " 

He  swore  a  variety  of  strange  oaths,  some  common, 
others  quaintly  horrible  to  Schomberg's  ears,  and  all 
mere  innocent  exclamations  of  wonder  at  the  shifts  and 
changes  of  human  fortune.  Schomberg  moved  slightly 
in  his  chair.  But  the  admirer  and  partner  of  "plain  Mr. 
Jones"  seemed  to  have  forgotten  Schomberg's  existence 
for  the  moment.  The  stream  of  ingenuous  blasphemy — 
some  of  it  in  bad  Spanish — ^had  run  dry,  and  Martin 
Ricardo,  connoisseur  in  gentlemen,  sat  dumb  with  a  stony 
gaze  as  if  still  marvelling  inwardly  at  the  amazing  elec- 
tions, conjunctions  and  associations  of  events  which  in- 
fluence man's  pilgrimage  on  this  earth. 

At  last  Schomberg  spoke  tentatively: 

"And  so  the — ^the  gentleman,  up  there,  talked  you  over 
into  leaving  a  good  berth?" 


122  VICTORY 

Ricardo  started. 

"Talked  me  over!  Didn't  need  to  talk  me  over.  He 
just  beckoned  to  me,  and  that  was  enough.  By  that  time 
we  were  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  One  night  we  were  lying 
at  anchor,  close  to  a  dry  sandbank — ^to  this  day  I  am 
not  sure  where  it  was — off  the  Colombian  coast  or  there- 
abouts. We  were  to  start  digging  the  next  morning,  and 
all  hands  had  turned  in  early,  expecting  a  hard  day  with 
the  shovels.  Up  he  comes,  and  in  his  quiet,  tired  way  of 
speaking — you  can  tell  a  gentleman  by  that  as  much  as 
by  anything  else  almost — up  he  comes  behind  me  and 
says,  just  like  that  into  my  ear,  in  a  manner:  'Well,  and 
what  do  you  think  of  our  treasure  hunt  now?' 

"I  didn't  even  turn  my  head;  'xactly  as  I  stood,  I 
remained,  and  I  spoke  no  louder  than  himself : 

"  *If  you  want  to  know,  sir,  it's  nothing  but  just  damned 
tomfoolery.'  J 

"We  had,  of  course,  been  having  short  talks  together 
at  one  time  or  another  during  the  passage.  I  dare  say 
he  had  read  me  like  a  book.  There  ain't  much  to  me, 
except  that  I  have  never  been  tame,  even  when  walking 
the  pavement  and  cracking  jokes  and  standing  drinks 
to  chums — ay,  and  to  strangers,  too.  I  would  watch  them 
lifting  their  elbows  at  my  expense,  or  splitting  their 
sides  at  my  fun — I  can  be  funny  when  I  like,  you  bet !" 

A  pause  for  self-complacent  contemplation  of  his  own 
fun  and  generosity  checked  the  flow  of  Ricardo's  speech. 
Schomberg  was  concerned  to  keep  within  bounds  the 
enlargement  of  his  eyes,  which  he  seemed  to  feel  grow- 
ing bigger  in  his  head. 

"Yes,  yes,"  he  whispered  hastily. 

"I    would    watch   them   and   think:    'You   boys    don't 

know  who  I  am.  If  you  did !'  With  girls,  too.  Once  I 

was  courting  a  girl.  I  used  to  kiss  her  behind  the  ear 
and  say  to  myself :  *If  you  only  knew  who's  kissing  you, 
my  dear,  you  would  scream  and  bolt!'  Ha!  ha!  Not  that 


VICTORY  123 

I  wanted  to  do  them  any  harm;  but  I  felt  the  power  in 
myself.  Now,  here  we  sit,  friendly  like,  and  that's  all 
right.  You  aren't  in  my  way.  But  I  am  not  friendly  to 
you.  I  just  don't  care.  Some  men  do  say  that;  but  I 
really  don't.  You  are  no  more  to  me  one  way  or  another 
than  that  fly  there.  Just  so.  I'd  squash  you  or  leave  you 
alone.  I  don't  care  what  I  do." 

If  real  force  of  character  consists  in  overcoming  our 
sudden  weaknesses,  Schomberg  displayed  plenty  of  that 
quality.  At  the  mention  of  the  fly,  he  re-enforced  the 
severe  dignity  of  his  attitude  as  one  inflates  a  collapsing 
toy  balloon  with  a  great  effort  of  breath.  The  easy- 
going, relaxed  attitude  of  Ricardo  was  really  appalling. 

"That's  so,"  he  went  on.  "I  am  that  sort  of  fellow. 
You  wouldn't  think  it,  would  you?  No.  You  have  to 
be  told.  So  I  am  telling  you,  and  I  dare  say  you  only 
half  believe  it.  But  you  can't  say  to  yourself  that  I  am 
drunk,  stare  at  me  as  you  may.  I  haven't  had  anything 
stronger  than  a  glass  of  iced  water  all  day.  Takes  a  real 
gentleman  to  see  through  a  fellow.  Oh,  yes — ^he  spotted 
me.  I  told  you  we  had  a  few  talks  at  sea  about  one  thing 
or  another.  And  I  used  to  watch  him  down  the  skylight, 
playing  cards  in  the  cuddy  with  the  others.  They  had  to 
pass  the  time  away  somehow.  By  the  same  token  he 
caught  me  at  it  once,  and  it  was  then  that  I  told  him  I 
was  fond  of  cards — and  generally  lucky  in  gambling,  too. 
Yes,  he  had  sized  me  up.  Why  not?  A  gentleman's  just 
like  any  other  man — and  something  more." 

It  flashed  through  Schomberg's  mind  that  these  two 
were  indeed  well  matched  in  their  enormous  dissimilar- 
ity, identical  souls  in  different  disguises. 

"Says  he  to  me" — Ricardo  started  again  in  a  gossip- 
ing manner — "  T'm  packed  up.  It's  about  time  to  go, 
Martin.' 

"It  was  the  first  time  he  called  me  Martin.  Says  I : 

"Ts  that  it,  sir?' 


124  VICTORY 

"  *You  didn't  think  I  was  after  that  sort  of  treasure, 
did  you?  I  wanted  to  clear  out  from  hoi;ne  quietly.  It's 
a  pretty  expensive  way  of  getting  a  passage  across,  but 
it  has  served  my  turn.' 

"I  let  him  know  very  soon  that  I  was  game  for  any- 
thing, from  pitch  and  toss  to  wilful  murder,  in  his 
company. 

"  'Wilful  murder?'  says  he  in  his  quiet  way.  'What  the 
deuce  is  that?  What  are  you  talking  about?  People  do 
get  killed  sometimes  when  they  get  in  one's  way,  but 
that's  self-defence — ^}'0u  understand?' 

"I  told  him  I  did.  And  then  I  said  I  would  run  below 
for  a  minute,  to  ram  a  few  of  my  things  into  a  sailor's 
bag  I  had.  I've  never  cared  for  a  lot  of  dunnage ;  I 
believed  in  going  about  flying  light  when  I  was  at  sea.  I 
came  back  and  found  him  strolling  up  and  down  the  deck, 
as  if  he  were  taking  a  breath  of  fresh  air  before  turning 
in,  like  on  any  other  evening. 

"'Ready?' 

"  'Yes,  sir.' 

"He  didn't  even  look  at  me.  We  had  had  a  boat  in  the 
water  astern  ever  since  we  came  to  anchor  in  the  after- 
noon. He  throws  the  stump  of  his  cigar  overboard. 

"  'Can  you  get  the  captain  out  on  deck  ?'  he  asks. 

"That  was  the  last  thing  in  the  world  I  should  have 
thought  of  doing.  I  lost  my  tongue  for  a  moment. 

"  'I  can  try,*  says  I. 

"  'Well,  then,  I  am  going  below.  You  get  him  up  and 
keep  him  with  you  till  I  come  back  on  deck.  Mind! 
Don't  let  him  go  below  till  I  return.' 

"I  could  not  help  asking  why  he  told  me  to  rouse  a 
sleeping  man,  when  we  wanted  everybody  on  board  to 
sleep  sweetly  till  we  got  clear  of  the  schooner.  He  laughs 
a  little  and  says  that  I  didn't  see  all  the  bearings  of  this 
business. 

"  'Mind,'  he  says,  'don't  let  him  leave  you  till  you  see 


VICTORY  125 

me  come  up  again.'  He  puts  his  eyes  close  to  mine.  *Keep 
him  with  you  at  all  costs/ 

"  *And  that  means  T  says  I. 

"  'All  costs  to  him — by  every  possible  or  impossible 
means.  I  don't  want  to  be  interrupted  in  my  business 
down  below.  He  would  give  me  lots  of  trouble.  I  take 
you  with  me  to  save  myself  trouble  in  various  circum- 
stances; and  you've  got  to  enter  on  your  work  right 
away.' 

"  'Just  so,  sir,'  says  I ;  and  he  slips  down  the  com- 
panion. 

"With  a  gentleman  you  know  at  once  where  you  are; 
but  it  was  a  ticklish  job.  The  skipper  was  nothing  to  me 
one  way  or  another,  any  more  than  you  are  at  this  mo- 
ment, Mr.  Schomberg.  You  may  light  your  cigar  or 
blow  your  brains  out  this  minute,  and  I  don't  care  a  hang 
which  you  do,  both  or  neither.  To  bring  the  skipper  up 
was  easy  enough.  I  had  only  to  stamp  on  the  deck  a  few 
times  over  his  head.  I  stamped  hard.  But  how  to  keep  him 
up  when  he  got  there? 

"  'Anything  the  matter,  Mr.  Ricardo  ?'  I  heard  his 
voice  behind  me. 

"There  he  was,  and  I  hadn't  thought  of  anything  to 
say  to  him ;  so  I  didn't  turn  around.  The  moonlight  was 
brighter  than  many  a  day  I  could  remember  in  the  North 
Sea. 

"  'Why  did  you  call  me  ?  What  are  you  staring  at  out 
there,  Mr.  Ricardo?' 

"He  was  deceived  by  my  keeping  my  back  to  him.  I 
wasn't  staring  at  anything,  but  his  mistake  gave  me  a 
notion. 

"  'I  am  staring  at  something  that  looks  like  a  canoe 
over  there,'  I  said  very  slowly. 

"The  skipper  got  concerned  at  once.  It  wasn't  any 
danger  from  the  inhabitants,  whoever  they  were. 

"'Oh,   hang  it!'   says   he.    'That's   very   unfortunate.' 


126  VICTORY 

He  had  hoped  that  the  schooner  being  on  the  coast 
would  not  get  known  so  very  soon.  ^Dashed  awkward, 
with  the  business  weVe  got  in  hand,  to  have  a  lot  of 
niggers  watching  operations.  But  are  you  certain  this 
is  a  canoe?' 

"  'It  may  be  a  drift-log,'  I  said ;  *but  I  thought  you 
had  better  have  a  look  with  your  own  eyes.  You  may  make 
it  out  better  than  I  can.' 

"His  eyes  weren't  anything  as  good  as  mine.  But  he 
says: 

"  'Certainly.  Certainly.  You  did  quite  right.' 

"And  it's  a  fact  I  had  seen  some  drift-logs  at  sunset. 
I  saw  what  they  were  then  and  didn't  trouble  my  head 
about  them,  forgot  all  about  it  till  that  very  moment. 
Nothing  strange  in  seeing  drift-logs  off  a  coast  like  that ; 
and  I'm  hanged  if  the  skipper  didn't  make  one  out  in 
the  wake  of  the  moon.  Strange  what  a  little  thing  a  man's 
life  hangs  on  sometimes — a  single  word !  Here  you  are, 
sitting  unsuspicious  before  me,  and  you  may  let  out 
something  unbeknown  to  you  that  would  settle  your  hash. 
Not  that  I  have  any  ill-feeling.  I  have  no  feelings.  If  the 
skipper  had  said,  'Oh,  bosh!'  and  had  turned  his  back 
on  me,  he  would  not  have  gone  three  steps  towards  his 
bed ;  but  he  stood  there  and  stared.  And  now  the  job  was 
to  get  him  off  the  deck  when  he  was  no  longer  wanted 
there. 

"  'We  are  just  trying  to  make  out  if  that  object  there 
is  a  canoe  or  a  log,'  says  he  to  Mr.  Jones. 

"Mr.  Jones  had  come  up,  lounging  as  carelessly  as 
when  he  went  below.  While  the  skipper  was  jawing 
about  boats  and  drifting  logs,  I  asked  by  signs,  from  be- 
hind, if  I  hadn't  better  knock  him  on  the  head  and  drop 
him  quietly  overboard.  The  night  was  slipping  by,  and 
we  had  to  go.  It  couldn't  be  put  off  till  next  night  no 
more.  No.  No  more.  And  do  you  know  why?" 

Schomberg  made  a  slight  negative  sign  with  his  head. 


VICTORY  127 

This  direct  appeal  annoyed  him,  jarred  on  the  induced 
quietude  of  a  great  talker  forced  into  the  part  of  a  lis- 
tener and  sunk  in  it  as  a  man  sinks  into  slumber.  Mr. 
Ricardo  struck  a  note  of  scorn. 

"Don't  know  why?  Can't  you  guess?  No?  Because 
the  boss  had  got  hold  of  the  skipper's  cash-box  by  then. 
See?" 


VII 

"A  COMMON  thief!" 

Schomberg  bit  his  tongue  just  too  late,  and  woke  up 
completely  as  he  saw  Ricardo  retract  his  lips  in  a  cat-like 
grin ;  but  the  companion  of  ''plain  Mr.  Jones'*  didn't 
alter  his  comfortable,  gossiping  attitude. 

"Garn!  What  if  he  did  want  to  see  his  money  back, 
like  any  tame  shopkeeper,  hash-seller,  gin-slinger,  or 
ink-spewer  does?  Fancy  a  mud-turtle  like  you  trying  to 
pass  an  opinion  on  a  gentleman !  A  gentleman  isn't  to  be 
sized  up  so  easily.  Even  I  ain't  up  to  it  sometimes.  For 
instance,  that  night,  all  he  did  was  to  waggle  his  finger 
at  me.  The  skipper  stops  his  silly  chatter,  surprised. 

"'Eh?  What's  the  matter?'  asks  he. 

"The  matter !  It  was  his  reprieve — that's  what  was 
the  matter. 

"  'Oh,  nothing,  nothing,'  says  my  gentleman.  'You 
are  perfectly  right.  A  log — nothing  but  a  log.' 

"Ha,  ha !  Reprieve,  I  call  it,  because  if  the  skipper  had 
gone  on  with  his  silly  argument  much  longer  he  would 
have  had  to  be  knocked  out  of  the  way.  I  could  hardly 
hold  myself  in  on  account  of  the  precious  minutes.  How- 
ever, his  guardian  angel  put  it  into  his  head  to  shut  up 
and  go  back  to  his  bed.  I  was  ramping  mad  about  the 
lost  time. 

"  'Why  didn't  you  let  me  give  him  one  on  his  silly 
coconut,  sir?'  I  asks. 

"  'No  ferocity,  no  ferocity,'  he  says,  raising  his  finger 
at  me  as  calm  as  you  please. 

"You  can't  tell  how  a  gentleman  takes  that  sort  of 

128 


VICTORY  129 

thing.  They  don't  lose  their  temper.  It's  bad  form.  You'll 
never  see  him  lose  his  temper — not  for  anybody  to  see, 
anyhow.  Ferocity  ain't  good  form,  either — that  much  I've 
learned  by  this  time,  and  more,  too.  I've  had  that  school- 
ing that  you  couldn't  tell  by  my  face  if  I  meant  to  rip 
you  up  the  next  minute — as  of  course  I  could  do  in 
less  than  a  jiffy.  I  have  a  knife  up  the  leg  of  my  trousers." 

"You    haven't!"    exclaimed    Schomberg   incredulously. 

Mr.  Ricardo  was  as  quick  as  lightning  in  changing  his 
lounging,  idle  attitude  for  a  stooping  position,  and  ex- 
hibiting the  weapon  with  one  jerk  at  the  left  leg  of  his 
trousers.  Schomberg  had  just  a  view  of  it,  strapped  to  a 
very  hairy  limb,  when  Mr.  Ricardo,  jumping  up,  stamped 
his  foot  to  get  the  trouser-leg  down,  and  resumed  his 
careless  pose  with  one  elbow  on  the  table. 

"It's  a  more  handy  way  to  carry  a  tool  than  you 
would  think,"  he  went  on,  gazing  abstractedly  into  Schom- 
berg's '  wide-open  eyes.  "Suppose  some  little  difference 
comes  up  during  a  game.  Well,  you  stoop  to  pick  up  a 
dropped  card,  and  when  you  come  up — ^there  you  are 
ready  to  strike,  or  with  the  thing  up  your  sleeve  ready  to 
throw.  Or  you  just  dodge  under  the  table  when  there's 
some  shooting  coming.  You  wouldn't  believe  the  damage 
a  fellow  with  a  knife  under  the  table  can  do  to  ill- 
conditioned  skunks  that  want  to  raise  trouble,  before 
they  begin  to  understand  what  the  screaming's  about, 
and  make  a  bolt — those  that  can,  that  is." 

The  roses  of  Schomberg's  cheek  at  the  root  of  his 
chestnut  beard  faded  perceptibly.  Ricardo  chuckled 
faintly. 

"But  no  ferocity — ^no  ferocity!  A  gentleman  knows. 
What's  the  good  of  getting  yourself  into  a  state?  And 
no  shirking  necessity,  either.  No  gentleman  ever  shirks. 
What  I  learn  I  don't  forget.  Why!  We  gambled  on  the 
plains,  with  a  damn  lot  of  cattlemen  in  ranches;  played 
fair,  mind — and  then  had  to  fight  for  our  winnings  after- 


I30  VICTORY 

wards  as  often  as  not.  We've  gambled  on  the  hills  and  in 
the  valleys  and  on  the  sea-shore,  and  out  of  sight  of 
land — mostly  fair.  Generally  it's  good  enough.  We  began 
in  Nicaragua  first,  after  v^e  left  that  schooner  and  her 
fool  errand.  There  were  one  hundred  and  twenty-seven 
sovereigns  and  some  Mexican  dollars  in  that  skipper's 
cash-box.  Hardly  enough  to  knock  a  man  on  the  head  for 
from  behind,  I  must  confess ;  but  that  the  skipper  had 
a  narrow  escape,  the  governor  himself  could  not  deny 
afterwards." 

"  *Do  you  want  me  to  understand,  sir,  that  you  mind 
there  being  one  life  more  or  less  on  this  earth?'  I  asked 
him,  a  few  hours  after  we  got  away. 

"  ^Certainly  not,'  says  he. 

"  'Well,  then,  why  did  you  stop  me?' 

"  'There's  a  proper  way  of  doing  things.  You'll  have 
to  learn  to  be  correct.  There's  also  unnecessary  exertion. 
That  must  be  avoided,  too — if  only  for  the  look  of  the 
thing.'  A  gentleman's  way  of  putting  things  to  you, — 
and  no  mistake ! 

"At  sunrise  we  got  into  a  creek,  to  lie  hidden  in  case 
the  treasure-hunt  party  had  a  mind  to  take  a  spell  hunt- 
ing, for  us.  And  dash  me  if  they  didn't !  We  saw  the 
schooner  away  out,  running  to  leeward,  with  ten  pairs  of 
binoculars  sweeping  the  sea,  no  doubt,  on  all  sides.  I 
advised  the  governor  to  give  her  time  to  beat  back  again 
before  we  made  a  start.  So  we  stayed  up  that  creek 
something  like  ten  days,  as  snug  as  can  be.  On  the  seventh 
day  we  had  to  kill  a  man,  though — the  brother  of  this 
Pedro  here.  They  were  alligator-hunters,  right  enough. 
We  got  our  lodgings  in  their  hut.  Neither  the  boss  nor 
I  could  habla  Espahol — speak  Spanish,  you  know — much 
then.  Dry  bank,  nice  shade,  jolly  hammocks,  fresh  fish, 
good  game,  everything  lovely.  The  governor  chucked 
them  a  few  dollars  to  begin  with ;  but  it  was  like  boarding 
with  a  pair  of  savage  apes,  anyhow.  By  and  by  we  noticed 


VICTORY  131 

them  talking  a  lot  together.  They  had  twigged  the  cash- 
box,  and  the  leather  portmanteaus,  and  my  bag — 3,  jolly 
lot  of  plunder  to  look  at.  They  must  have  been  saying  to 
each  other : 

"  'No  one's  ever  likely  to  come  looking  for  these  two 
fellows,  who  seem  to  have  fallen  from  the  moon.  Let's 
cut  their  throats.' 

"Why,  of  course !  Clear  ^as  daylight.  I  didn't  need  to 
spy  one  of  them  sharpening  a  devilish  long  knife  behind 
some  bushes,  while  glancing  right  and  left  with  his  wild 
eyes,  to  know  what  was  in  the  wind.  Pedro  was  standing 
by,  trying  the  edge  of  another  long  knife.  They  thought 
we  were  away  on  our  look-out  at  the  mouth  of  the  river, 
as  was  usual  with  us  during  the  day.  Not  that  we  ex- 
pected to  see  much  of  the  schooner,  but  it  was  just  as 
well  to  make  certain,  if  possible;  and  then  it  was  cooler 
out  of  the  woods,  in  the  breeze.  Well,  the  governor  was 
there  right  enough,  lying  comfortable  on  a  rug,  where 
he  could  watch  the  offing,  but  I  had  gone  back  to  the  hut 
to  get  a  chew  of  tobacco  out  of  my  bag.  I  had  not  broken 
myself  of  the  habit  then,  and  I  couldn't  be  happy  unless 
I  had  a  lump  as  big  as  a  baby's  fist  in  my  cheek." 

At  the  cannibalistic  comparison,  Schomberg  muttered 
a  faint  sickly  "don't."  Ricardo  hitched  himself  up  in  his 
seat  and  glanced  down  his  outstretched  legs  complacently. 

"I  am  tolerably  light  on  my  feet,  as  a  general  thing," 
he  went  on.  "Dash  me  if  I  don't  think  I  could  drop  a 
pinch  of  salt  on  a  sparrow's  tail,  if  I  tried.  Anyhow, 
they  didn't  hear  me.  I  watched  them  two  brown,  hairy 
brutes  not  ten  yards  off.  All  they  had  on  was  white 
linen  drawers  rolled  up  on  their  thighs.  Not  a  word  they 
said  to  each  other.  Antonio  was  down  on  his  thick  hams, 
busy  rubbing  the  knife  on  a  flat  stone ;  Pedro  was  leaning 
against  a  small  tree  and  passing  his  thumb  along  the 
edge  of  his  blade.  I  got  away  quieter  than  a  mouse,  you 
bet. 


f32  VICTORY 

"I  didn't  say  anything  to  the  boss  then.  He  was  lean- 
ing on  his  elbow  on  his  rug,  and  didn't  seem  to  want  to  be 
spoken  to.  He's  like  that — sometimes  that  familiar  you 
might  think  he  would  eat  out  of  your  hand,  and  at  others 
he  would  snub  you  sharper  than  a  devil — but  always 
quiet.  Perfect  gentleman,  I  tell  you.  I  didn't  bother  him 
then;  but  I  wasn't  likely  to  forget  them  two  fellows,  so 
business-like  with  their  knives.  At  that  time  we  had 
only  one  revolver  between  us  two — the  governor's  six- 
shooter,  but  loaded  only  in  five  chambers;  and  we  had 
no  more  cartridges.  He  had  left  the  box  behind  in  a 
drawer  in  his  cabin.  Awkward !  I  had  nothing  but  an  old 
clasp-knife — no  good  at  all  for  anything  serious. 

*'In  the  evening  we  four  sat  round  a  bit  of  fire  outside 
the  sleeping-shed,  eating  broiled  fish  off  plantain  leaves, 
with  roast  yams  for  bread — ^the  usual  thing.  The  governor 
and  I  were  on  one  side,  and  these  two  beauties,  cross- 
legged  on  the  other,  grunting  a  word  or  two  to  each  other 
now  and  then,  hardly  human  speech  at  all,  and  their  eyes 
down,  fast  on  the  ground.  For  the  last  three  days  we 
couldn't  get  them  to  look  us  in  the  face.  Presently  I 
began  to  talk  to  the  boss  quietly,  just  as  I  am  talking  to 
you  now,  careless  like,  and  I  told  him  all  I  had  observed. 
He  goes  on  picking  up  pieces  of  fish  and  putting  them 
into  his  mouth  as  calm  as  anything.  It's  a  pleasure  to 
have  anything  to  do  with  a  gentleman.  Never  looked 
across  at  them  once. 

"  'And  now,'  says  I,  yawning  on  purpose,  'we've  got 
to  stand  watch  at  night,  turn  about,  and  keep  our  eyes 
skinned  all  day,  too,  and  mind  we  don't  get  jumped  upon 
suddenly.' 

"  'It's  perfectly  intolerable,'  says  the  governor.  'And 
you  with  no  weapon  of  any  sort!' 

"  'I  mean  to  stick  pretty  close  to  you,  sir,  from  this 
on,  if  you  don't  mind,'  says  I. 

"He  just  nods  the  least  bit,  wipes  his  fingers  on  the 


VICTORY  133 

plantain  leaf,  puts  his  hand  behind  his  back,  as  if  to  help 
himself  to  rise  from  the  ground,  snatches  his  revolver 
from  under  his  jacket,  and  plugs  a  bullet  plumb  centre 
into  Mr.  Antonio's  chest.  See  what  it  is  to  have  to  do 
with  a  gentleman.  No  confounded  fuss,  and  things  done 
out  of  hand.  But  he  might  have  tipped  me  a  wink  or 
something.  I  nearly  jumped  out  of  my  skin.  Scared  ain't 
in  it !  I  didn't  even  know  who  had  fired.  Everything  had 
been  so  still  just  before  that  the  bang  of  the  shot  seemed 
the  loudest  noise  I  had  ever  heard.  The  honourable  An- 
tonio pitches  forward — they  always  do,  towards  the  shot ; 
you  must  have  noticed  that  yourself — ^yes,  he  pitches  for- 
ward on  to  the  embers,  and  all  that  lot  of  hair  on  his 
face  and  head  flashes  up  like  a  pinch  of  gunpowder. 
Greasy,  I  expect;  always  scraping  the  fat  off  them  alii- 
gators'  hides " 

"Look  here,"  exclaimed  Schomberg  violently,  as  if 
trying  to  burst  some  invisible  bonds,  "do  you  mean  to 
say  that  all  this  happened?" 

"No,"  said  Ricardo  coolly.  "I  am  making  it  all  up  as 
I  go  along,  just  to  help  you  through  the  hottest  part  of 
the  afternoon.  So  down  he  pitches,  his  nose  on  the  red 
embers,  and  up  jumps  our  handsome  Pedro  and  I  at  the 
same  time,  like  two  Jacks-in-the-box.  He  starts  to  bolt 
away,  with  his  head  over  his  shoulder,  and  I,  hardly 
knowing  what  I  was  doing,  spring  on  his  back.  I  had 
the  sense  to  get  my  hands  round  his  neck  at  once,  and 
it's  about  all  I  could  do  to  lock  my  fingers  tight  under  his 
jaw.  You  saw  the  beauty's  neck,  didn't  you?  Hard  as 
iron,  too.  Down  we  both  went.  Seeing  this  the  governor 
puts  his  revolver  in  his  pocket. 

"  Tie  his  legs  together,  sir,'  I  yell.  'I'm  trying  to 
strangle  him.' 

"There  was  a  lot  of  their  fibre-lines  lying  about.  I 
gave  him  a  last  squeeze  and  then  got  up. 


134  VICTORY 

"  *I  might  have  shot  you/  says  the  governor,  quite  con- 
cerned. 

"  *But  you  are  glad  to  have  saved  a  cartridge,  sir/  I 
tell  him. 

"My  jump  did  save  it.  It  wouldn't  have  done'  to  let 
him  get  away  in  the  dark  like  that,  and  have  the  beauty 
dodging  around  in  the  bushes,  perhaps,  with  the  rusty 
flint-lock  gun  they  had.  The  governor  owned  up  that  the 
jump  was  the  correct  thing. 

"  'But  he  isn't  dead,'  says  he,  bending  over  him. 

*'Might  as  well  hope  to  strangle  an  ox.  We  made  haste 
to  tie  his  elbows  back,  and  then,  before  he  came  to  him- 
self, we  dragged  him  to  a  small  tree,  sat  him  up,  and 
bound  him  to  it,  not  by  the  waist  but  by  the  neck — some 
twenty  turns  of  small  line  round  his  throat  and  the  trunk, 
finished  off  with  a  reef-knot  under  his  ear.  Next  thing  we 
did  was  to  attend  to  the  honourable  Antonio,  who  was 
making  a  great  smell  frizzling  his  face  on  the  red  coals. 
We  pushed  and  rolled  him  into  the  creek,  and  left  the 
rest  to  the  alligators. 

*1  was  tired.  That  little  scrap  took  it  out  of  me  some- 
thing awful.  The  governor  hadn't  turned  a  hair.  That's 
where  a  gentleman  has  the  pull  of  you.  He  don't  get 
excited.  No  gentleman  does — or  hardly  ever.  I  fell  asleep 
all  of  a  sudden  and  left  him  smoking  by  the  fire  I  had 
made  up,  his  railway  rug  round  his  legs,  as  calm  as  if 
he  were  sitting  in  a  first-class  carriage.  We  hardly  spoke 
ten  words  to  each  other  after  it  was  over,  and  from  that 
day  to  this  we  have  never  talked  of  the  business.  I 
wouldn't  have  known  he  remembered  it  if  he  hadn't  al- 
luded to  it  when  talking  with  you  the  other  day — you 
know,  with  regard  to  Pedro. 

"It  surprised  you,  didn't  it?  That's  why  I  am  giving 
you  this  yarn  of  how  he  came  to  be  with  us,  like  a  sort 
of  dog — dashed  sight  more  useful,  though.  You  know 
how  he  can  trot  around  with  trays  ?  Well,  he  could  bring 


VICTORY  135 

down  an  ox  with  his  fist,  at  a  word  from  the  boss,  just 
as  cleverly.  And  fond  of  the  governor !  Oh,  my  word ! 
More  than  any  dog  is  of  any  man." 

Schomberg  squared  his  chest. 

"Oh,  and  that's  one  of  the  things  I  wanted  to  mention 
to  Mr.  Jones,"  he  said.  "It's  unpleasant  to  have  that 
fellow  round  the  house  so  early.  He  sits  on  the  stairs  at 
the  back  for  hours  before  he  is  needed  here,  and  frightens 
people  so  that  the  service  suffers.  The  Chinamen " 

Ricardo  nodded  and  raised  his  hand. 

"When  I  first  saw  him  he  was  fit  to  frighten  a  grizzly 
bear,  let  alone  a  Chinaman.  He's  become  civilised  now 
to  what  he  once  was.  Well,  that  morning,  first  thing  on 
opening  my  eyes,  I  saw  him  sitting  there,  tied  up  by  the 
neck  to  the  tree.  He  was  blinking.  We  spent  the  day 
watching  the  sea,  and  we  actually  made  out  the  schooner 
working  to  windward,  which  showed  that  she  had  given 
us  up.  Good !  When  the  sun  rose  again,  I  took  a  squint 
at  our  Pedro.  He  wasn't  blinking.  He  was  rolling  his 
eyes,  all  white  one  minute  and  black  the  next,  and  his 
tongue  was  hanging  out  a  yard.  Being  tied  up  short  by  the 
neck  like  this  would  daunt  the  arch  devil  himself — in 
time — in  time,  mind!  I  don't  know  but  that  even  a  real 
gentleman  would  find  it  difficult  to  keep  a  stiff  lip  to  the 
end.  Presently  we  went  to  work  getting  our  boat  ready. 
I  was  busying  myself  setting  up  the  mast,  when  the 
governor  passes  the  remark: 

"  T  think  he  wants  to  say  something.' 

"I  had  heard  a  sort  of  croaking  going  on  for  some 
time,  only  I  wouldn't  take  any  notice ;  but  then  I  got  out 
of  the  boat  and  went  up  to  him,  with  some  water.  His 
eyes  were  red — red  and  black  and  half  out-  of  his  head. 
He  drank  all  the  water  I  gave  him,  but  he  hadn't  much 
to  say  for  himself.  I  walked  back  to  the  governor. 

"  *He  asks  for  a  bullet  in  his  head  before  we  go,'  I 
said.  I  wasn't  at  all  pleased. 


136  VICTORY 

*'  'Oh,  that's  out  of  the  question  altogether,'  says  the 
governor. 

"He  was  right  there.  Only  four  shots  left,  and  ninety 
miles  of  wild  coast  to  put  behind  us  before  coming  to  the 
first  place  where  you  could  expect  to  buy  revolver  car- 
tridges. 

"  'Anyhow,'  I  tells  him,  'he  wants  to  be  killed  some 
way  or  other,  as  a  favour.' 

"And  then  I  go  on  setting  the  boat's  mast.  I  didn't 
care  much  for  the  notion  of  butchering  a  man  bound 
hand  and  foot  and  fastened  by  the  neck  besides.  I  had  a 
knife  then — the  honourable  Antonio's  knife;  and  that 
knife  is  this  knife." 

Antonio  gave  his  leg  a  resounding  slap. 

"First  spoil  in  my  new  life,"  he  went  on  with  harsh 
jovialit}'.  "The  dodge  of  carrying  it  down  there  I  learned 
later.  I  carried  it  stuck  in  my  belt  that  day.  No,  I  hadn't 
much  stomach  for  the  job;  but  when  you  work  with  a 
gentleman  of  the  real  right  sort  you  may  depend  on  your 
feelings  being  seen  through  your  skin.  Says  the  governor 
suddenly : 

"  'It  may  even  be  looked  upon  as  his  right' — ^>'0u  hear 
a  gentleman  speaking  there? — 'but  what  do  you  think  of 
taking  him  with  us  in  the  boat?' 

"And  the  governor  starts  arguing  that  the  beggar 
would  be  useful  in  working  our  way  along  the  coast.  We 
could  get  rid  of  him  before  coming  to  the  first  place  that 
was  a  little  civilised.  I  didn't  want  much  talking  over.  Out 
I  scrambled  from  the  boat. 

"  *Ay,  but  will  he  be  manageable,  sir  ?' 

"  'Oh,  yes.  He's  daunted.  Go  on,  cut  him  loose — I  take 
the  responsibility.' 

"  'Right  you  are,  sir.' 

"He  sees  me  come  along  smartly  with  his  brother's 
knife  in  my  hand — I  wasn't  thinking  how  it  looked  from 
his  side  of  the  fence,  you  know — ^and  jiminy,  it  nearly 


VICTORY  137 

killed  him !  He  stared  like  a  crazed  bullock  and  began  to 
sweat  and  twitch  all  over,  something  amazing.  I  was  so 
surprised  that  I  stopped  to  look  at  him.  The  drops  were 
pouring  over  his  eyebrows,  down  his  beard,  off  his  nose — 
and  he  gurgled.  Then  it  struck  me  that  he  couldn't  see 
what  was  in  my  mind.  By  favour  or  by  right  he  didn't 
like  to  die  when  it  came  to  it;  not  in  that  way,  anyhow. 
When  I  stepped  round  to  get  at  the  lashing,  he  let  out  a 
sort  of  soft  bellow.  Thought  I  was  going  to  stick  him 
from  behind,  I  guess.  I  cut  all  the  turns  with  one  slash, 
and  he  went  over  on  his  side,  flop,  and  started  kicking 
with  his  tied  legs.  Laugh!  I  don't  know  what  there  was 
so  funny  about  it,  but  I  fairly  shouted.  What  between  my 
laughing  and  his  wriggling,  I  had  a  job  in  cutting  him 
free.  As  soon  as  he  could  feel  his  limbs  he  makes  for  the 
bank,  where  the  governor  was  standing,  crawls  up  to  him 
on  his  hands  and  knees,  and  embraces  his  legs.  Gratitude, 
eh?  You  could  see  that  being  allowed  to  live  suited  that 
chap  down  to  the  ground.  The  governor  gets  his  legs  away 
from  him  gently  and  just  mutters  to  me : 

"  'Let's  be  off.  Get  him  into  the  boat.' 

"It  was  not  difficult,"  continued  Ricardo,  after  eyeing 
Schomberg  fixedly  for  a  moment.  "He  was  ready  enough 
to  get  into  the  boat,  and — ^here  he  is.  He  would  let  himself 
be  chopped  into  small  pieces — with  a  smile,  mind;  with 
a  smile! — for  the  governor.  I  don't  know  about  him 
doing  that  much  for  me;  but  pretty  near,  pretty  near.  I 
did  the  tying  up  and  the  untying,  but  he  could  see  who 
was  the  boss.  And  then  he  knows  a  gentleman.  A  dog 
knows  a  gentleman — any  dog.  It's  only  some  foreigners 
that  don't  know;  and  nothing  can  teach  them,  either." 

"And  you  mean  to  say,"  asked  Schomberg,  disregard- 
ing what  might  have  been  annoying  for  himself  in  the 
emphasis  of  the  final  remark,  "you  mean  to  say  that  you 
left  steady  employment  at  good  wages  for  a  life  like 
this?" 


138  VICTORY 

"There!"  began  Ricardo  quietly.  "That's  just  what  a 
man  like  you  would  say.  You  are  that  tame!  I  follow  a 
gentleman.  That  ain't  the  same  thing  as  to  serve  an  em- 
ployer. They  give  you  wages  as  they'd  fling  a  bone  to  a 
dog,  and  they  expect  you  to  be  grateful.  It's  worse  than 
slavery.  You  don't  expect  a  slave  that's  bought  for  money 
to  be  grateful.  And  if  you  sell  your  work — what  is  it  but 
selling  your  own  self?  You've  got  so  many  days  to  live 
and  you  sell  them  one  after  another.  Hey?  Who  can  pay 
me  enough  for  my  life?  Ay!  But  they  throw  at  you  your 
week's  money  and  expect  you  to  say,  *thank  you'  before 
you  pick  it  up." 

He  mumbled  some  curses,  directed  at  employers  gen- 
erally, as  it  seemed,  then  blazed  out: 

"Work  be  damned !  I  ain't  a  dog  walking  on  its  hind 
legs  for  a  bone;  I  am  a  man  who's  following  a  gentle- 
man. There's  a  difference  which  you  will  never  under- 
stand, Mr.  Tame  Schomberg." 

He  yawned  slightly.  Schomberg,  preserving  a  military 
stiffness  reinforced  by  a  slight  frown,  had  allowed  his 
thoughts  to  stray  away.  They  were  busy  detailing  the 
image  of  a  young  girl — absent — ^gone — stolen  from  him. 
He  became  enraged.  There  was  that  rascal  looking  at  him 
insolently.  If  the  girl  had  not  been  shamefully  decoyed 
away  from  him,  he  would  not  have  allowed  any  one  to 
look  at  him  insolently.  He  would  have  made  nothing  of 
hitting  that  rogue  between  the  eyes.  Afterwards  he  would 
have  kicked  the  other  without  hesitation.  He  saw  himself 
doing  it;  and  in  sympathy  with  this  glorious  vision 
Schomberg's  right  foot  and  right  arm  moved  convulsively. 

At  this  moment  he  came  out  of  his  sudden  reverie  to 
note  with  alarm  the  wide-awake  curiosity  of  Mr.  Ricardo's 
stare. 

"And  so  you  go  like  this  about  the  world,  gambling," 
he  remarked  inanely,  to  cover  his  confusion.  But  Ricardo's 


VICTORY  139 

stare  did  not  chapge  its  character,  and  he  continued 
vaguely : 

"Here  and  there  and  everywhere.'*  He  pulled  himself 
together,  squared  his  shoulders.  "Isn't  it  very  precarious?'* 
he  said  firmly. 

The  word  precarious  seemed  to  be  effective,  because 
Ricardo's  eyes  lost  their  dangerously  interested  expres- 
sion. 

"No,  not  so  bad,"  Ricardo  said,  with  indifference.  "It's 
my  opinion  that  men  will  gamble  as  long  as  they  have 
anything  to  put  on  a  card.  Gamble  ?  That's  nature.  What's 
life  itself  ?  You  never  know  what  may  turn  up.  The  worst 
of  it  is  that  you  never  can  tell  exactly  what  sort  of  cards 
you  are  holding  yourself.  What's  trumps? — ^that  is  the 
question.  See?  Any  man  will  gamble  if  only  he's  given 
a  chance,  for  anything  or  everything.  You  too " 

"I  haven't  touched  a  card  now  for  twenty  years,"  said 
Schomberg  in  an  austere  tone. 

"Well,  if  you  got  your  living  that  way  you  would  be 
no  worse  than  you  are  now,  selling  drinks  to  people — 
beastly  beer  and  spirits,  rotten  stiiff  fit  to  make  an  old 
he-goat  yell  if  you  poured  it  down  its  throat.  Pooh !  I 
can't  stand  the  confounded  liquor.  Never  could.  A  whiff 
of  neat  brandy  in  a  glass  makes  me  feel  sick.  Always  did. 
If  everybody  was  like  me,  liquor  would  be  going  a-beg- 
ging. You  think  it's  funny  in  a  man,  don't  you?" 

Schomberg  made  a  vague  gesture  of  toleration.  Ricardo 
hitched  up  in  his  chair  and  settled  his  elbow  afresh  on  the 
table. 

"French  siros  I  must  say  I  do  like.  Saigon's  the  place 
for  them.  I  see  you  have  siros  in  the  bar.  Hang  me  if 
I  ain't  getting  dry,  conversing  like  this  with  you.  Come, 
Mr.  Schomberg,  be  hospitable,  as  the  governor  says." 

Schomberg  rose  and  walked  with  dignity  to  the  counter. 
His    footsteps   echoed   loudly   on   the   floor   of   polished 


I40  VICTORY 

boards.  He  took  down  a  bottle  labelled  Strop  de  Groseille. 
The  little  sounds  he  made,  the  clink  of  glass,  the  gurgling 
of  the  liquid,  the  pop  of  the  soda-water  cork  had  a  preter- 
natural sharpness.  He  came  back  carrying  a  pink  and 
ghstening  tumbler.  Mr.  Ricardo  had  followed  his  move- 
ments with  oblique,  coyly  expectant  yellow  eyes,  like  a  cat 
watching  the  preparation  of  a  saucer  of  milk;  and  the 
satisfied  sound  after  he  had  drunk  might  have  been  a 
slightly  modified  form  of  purring,  very  soft  and  deep  in 
his  throat.  It  affected  Schomberg  unpleasantly  as  another 
example  of  something  inhuman  in  those  men  wherein  lay 
the  difficulty  of  dealing  with  them.  A  spectre,  a  cat,  an 
ape — ^there  was  a  pretty  association  for  a  mere  man  to 
remonstrate  with,  he  reflected  with  an  inward  shudder; 
for  Schomberg  had  been  overpowered,  as  it  were,  by  his 
imagination,  and  his  reason  could  not  react  against  that 
fanciful  view  of  his  guests.  And  it  was  not  only  their  ap- 
pearance. The  morals  of  Mr.  Ricardo  seemed  to  him  to 
be  pretty  much  the  morals  of  a  cat.  Too  much.  What 
sort  of  argument  could  a  mere  man  offer  to  a  .  .  .  or  to  a 
spectre,  either !  What  the  morals  of  a  spectre  could  be, 
Schomberg  had  no  idea.  Something  dreadful,  no  doubt. 
Compassion  certainly  had  no  place  in  them.  As  to  the  ape 
— well,  ever}'body  knew  what  an  ape  was.  It  had  no 
morals.  Nothing  could  be  more  hopeless. 

Outwardly,  however,  having  picked  up  the  cigar  which 
he  had  laid  aside  to  get  the  drink,  with  his  thick  fingers, 
one  of  them  ornamented  by  a  gold  ring,  Schomberg 
smoked  with  moody  composure.  Facing  him,  Ricardo 
blinked  slowly  for  a  time,  then  closed  his  eyes  altogether, 
with  the  placidity  of  the  domestic  cat  dozing  on  the 
hearth-rug.  In  another  moment  he  opened  them  very  wide, 
and  seemed  surprised  to  see  Schomberg  there. 

*' You're  having  a  ver}*  slack  time  to-day,  aren't  you?" 
he  observ^ed.  ''But  then  this  whole  town  is  confoundedly 
slack,  anyhow ;  and  I've  never  faced  such  a  slack  party 


VICTORY  141 

at  a  table  before.  Come  eleven  o'clock,  they  begin  to  talk 
of  breaking  up.  What's  the  matter  with  them  ?  Want  to  go 
to  bed  so  early,  or  what  ?" 

"I  reckon  you  don't  lose  a  fortune  by  their  wanting  to 
go  to  bed,"  said  Schomberg,  with  sombre  sarcasm. 

"No,"  admitted  Ricardo,  with  a  grin  that  stretched 
his  thin  mouth  from  ear  to  ear,  giving  a  sudden  glimpse 
of  his  white  teeth.  "Only,  you  see,  when  I  once  start,  I 
would  play  for  nuts,  for  parched  peas,  for  any  rubbish. 
I  would  play  them  for  their  souls.  But  these  Dutchmen 
aren't  any  good.  They  never  seem  to  get  warmed  up 
properly,  win  or  lose.  I've  tried  them  both  ways,  too. 
Hang  them  for  a  beggarly,  bloodless  lot  of  animated 
cucumbers !" 

"And  if  anything  out  of  the  way  was  to  happen,  they 
would  be  just  as  cool  in  locking  you  and  your  gentleman 
up,"  Schomberg  snarled  unpleasantly. 

"Indeed!"  said  Ricardo  slowly,  taking  Schomberg's 
measure  with  his  eyes.  "And  what  about  you?" 

"You  talk  mighty  big,"  burst  out  the  hotel-keeper. 
"You  talk  of  ranging  all  over  the  world  and  doing  great 
things,  and  taking  fortune  by  the  scruff  of  the  neck,  but 
here  you  stick  at  this  miserable  business !" 

"It  isn't  much  of  a  lay — ^that's  a  fact,"  admitted  Ri- 
cardo unexpectedly. 

Schomberg  was  red  in  the  face  with  audacity. 

"I  call  it  paltry,'*  he  spluttered. 

"That's  how  it  looks.  Can't  call  it  anything  else." 
Ricardo  seemed  to  be  in  an  accommodating  mood.  "I 
should  be  ashamed  of  it  myself,  only  you  see  the  governor 
is  subject  to  fits " 

"Fits !"  Schomberg  cried  out,  but  in  a  low  tone.  "You 
don't  say  so!"  He  exulted  inwardly,  as  if  this  disclosure 
had  in  some  way  diminished  the  difficulty  of  the  situa- 
tion. "Fits !  That's  a  serious  thing,  isn't  it  ?  You  ought  to 
take  him  to  the  civil  hospital — a  lovely  place." 


142  VICTORY 

Ricardo  nodded  slightly,  with  a  faint  grin. 

"Serious  enough.  Regular  fits  of  laziness,  I  call  them. 
Now  and  then  he  lays  down  on  me  like  this,  and  there's 
no  moving  him.  If  you  think  I  like  it,  you're  a  long  way 
out.  Generally  speaking,  I  can  talk  him  over.  I  know 
how  to  deal  with  a  gentleman.  I  am  no  daily-bread  slave. 
But  when  he  has  said,  'Martin,  I  am  bored,'  then  look 
out !  There's  nothing  to  do  but  to  shut  up,  confound  it !" 

Schomberg,  very  much  cast  down,  had  listened  open- 
mouthed. 

"What's  the  cause  of  it?"  he  asked.  "Why  is  he  like 
this?  I  don't  understand." 

"I  think  I  do,"  said  Ricardo.  "A  gentleman,  you  know, 
is  not  such  a  simple  person  as  you  or  I ;  and  not  so  easy 
to  manage,  either.  If  only  I  had  something  to  lever 
him  out  with!" 

"What  do  you  mean,  to  lever  him  out  with?"  muttered 
Schomberg  hopelessly. 

Ricardo  was  impatient  with  this  denseness. 

"Don't  you  understand  English?  Look  here!  I  couldn't 
make  this  billiard-table  move  an  inch  if  I  talked  to  it  from 
now  till  the  end  of  days — could  I  ?  Well,  the  governor  is 
like  that,  too,  when  the  fits  are  on  him.  He's  bored. 
Nothing's  worth  while,  nothing's  good  enough,  that's  mere 
sense.  But  if  I  saw  a  capstan  bar  lying  about  here,  I  would 
soon  manage  to  shift  that  billiard-table  of  yours  a  good 
many  inches.  And  that's  all  there  is  to  it." 

He  rose  noiselessly,  stretched  himself,  supple  and 
stealthy,  with  curious  sideways  movements  of  his  head 
and  unexpected  elongations  of  his  thick  body,  glanced 
out  of  the  corners  of  his  eyes  in  the  direction  of  the  door, 
and  finally  leaned  back  against  the  table,  folding  his  arms 
on  his  breast  comfortably,  in  a  completely  human  atti- 
tude. 

"That's  another  thing  you  can  tell  a  gentleman  by — 
his  freakishness.  A  gentleman  ain't  accountable  to  nobody. 


VICTORY  143 

any  more  than  a  tramp  on  the  roads.  He  ain't  got  to  keep 
time.  The  governor  got  Hke  this  once  in  a  one-horse 
Mexican  pueblo  on  the  uplands,  away  from  everywhere. 
He  lay  all  day  long  in  a  dark  room " 

*'Drunk?"  This  word  escaped  Schomberg  by  inadvert- 
ence, at  which  he  became  frightened.  But  the  devoted 
secretary  seemed  to  find  it  natural. 

"No,  that  never  comes  on  together  with  this  kind  of 
fit.  He  just  lay  there  full  length  on  a  mat,  while  a  rag- 
ged, bare-legged  boy  that  he  had  picked  up  in  the  street 
sat  in  the  patio,  between  two  oleanders  near  the  open 
door  of  his  room,  strumming  on  a  guitar  and  singing 
tristes  to  him  from  morning  to  night.  You  know  tristes 
—twang,  twang,  twang,  aouh,  hoo !  Chroo,  yah !" 

Schomberg  uplifted  his  hands  in  distress.  This  tribute 
seemed  to  flatter  Ricardo.  His  mouth  twitched  grimly. 

"Like  that — enough  to  give  colic  to  an  ostrich,  eh? 
Awful.  Well,  there  was  a  cook  there  who  loved  me — 
an  old  fat,  negro  woman  with  spectacles.  I  used  to  hide 
in  the  kitchen  and  turn  her  to,  to  make  me  dukes — 
sweet  things,  you  know,  mostly  eggs  and  sugar — to  pass 
the  time  away.  I  am  like  a  kid  for  sweet  things.  And,  by 
the  way,  why  don't  you  ever  have  a  pudding  at  your  tably- 
dott,  Mr.  Schomberg?  Nothing  but  fruit,  morning,  noon, 
and  night.  Sickening!  What  do  you  think  a  fellow  is — a 
wasp?" 

Schomberg  disregarded  the  injured  tone. 

"And  how  long  did  that  fit,  as  you  call  it,  last?"  he 
asked  anxiously. 

"Weeks,  months,  years,  centuries,  it  seemed  to  me," 
returned  Mr.  Ricardo  with  feeling.  "Of  an  evening  the 
governor  would  stroll  out  into  the  sala  and  fritter  his 
life  away  playing  cards  with  the  juez  of  the  place — ^. 
little  Dago  with  a  pair  of  black  whiskers — ekarty,  you 
know,  a  quick  French  game,  for  small  change.  And  the 
comandante,   a  one-eyed,   half -Indian,   flat-nosed   ruffian 


144  VICTORY 

and  I,  we  had  to  stand  around  and  bet  on  their  hands.  It 
was  awful !" 

"Awful,"   echoed    Schomberg,    in   a   Teutonic   throaty 
tone  of  despair.  "Look  here,  I  need  your  rooms." 

"To  be  sure.  I  have  been  thinking  that  for  some  time 
past,"  said  Ricardo  indifferently. 

"I  was  mad  when  I  listened  to  you.  This  must  end!" 

"I  think  you  are  mad  yet,"  said  Ricardo,  not  even 
unfolding  his  arms  or  shifting  his  attitude  an  inch.  He 
lowered  his  voice  to  add :  "And  if  I  thought  you  had  been  1 
to  the  police,  I  would  tell  Pedro  to  catch  you  round  the 
waist  and  break  your  fat  neck  by  jerking  your  head 
backward — snap!  I  saw  him  do  it  to  a  big  buck  nigger 
who  was  flourishing  a  razor  in  front  of  the  governor,  i 
It  can  be  done.  You  hear  a  low  crack,  that's  all — and  the 
man  drops  down  like  a  limp  rag." 

Not  even  Ricardo' s  head,  slightly  inclined  on  the  left  J 
shoulder,   had   moved;   but   when  he   ceased   the   green- 
ish irises  which  had  been  staring  out  of  doors  glided  into 
the  corners  of  his  eyes  nearest  to  Schomberg  and  stayed 
there  with  a  coyly  voluptuous  expression. 


VIII 

ScHOMBERG  felt  dcsperation,  that  lamentable  substitute 
for  courage,  ooze  out  of  him.  It  was  not  so  much  the 
threat  of  death  as  the  weirdly  circumstantial  manner  of 
its  declaration  which  affected  him.  A  mere  'Til  murder 
you/'  however  ferocious  in  tone  and  earnest  in  purpose, 
he  could  have  faced ;  but  before  this  novel  mode  of  speech 
and  procedure,  his  imagination  being  very  sensitive  to 
the  unusual,  he  collapsed  as  if  indeed  his  moral  neck  had 
been  broken — snap! 

"Go  to  the  police?  Of  course  not.  Never  dreamed  of  it. 
Too  late  now.  I've  let  myself  be  mixed  up  in  this.  You 
got  my  consent  while  I  wasn't  myself.  I  explained  it  to 
you  at  the  time." 

Ricardo's  eyes  glided  gently  off  Schomberg  to  stare 
far  away. 

"Ay!  Some  trouble  with  a  girl.  But  that's  nothing  to 
us." 

"Naturally.  What  I  say  is,  what's  the  good  of  all  that 
savage  talk  to  me?"  A  bright  argument  occurred  to  him. 
"It's  out  of  proportion;  for  even  if  I  were  fool  enough 
to  go  to  the  police  now,  there's  nothing  serious  to  com- 
plain about.  It  would  only  mean  deportation  for  you. 
They  would  put  you  on  board  the  first  westbound  steamer 
to  Singapore."  He  had  become  animated.  "Out  of  this  to 
the  devil,"  he  added  between  his  teeth  for  his  own  private 
satisfaction. 

Ricardo  made  no  comment,  and  gave  no  sign  of  hav- 
ing heard  a  single  word.  This  discouraged  Schomberg, 
who  had  looked  up  hopefully. 

145 


146  VICTORY 

"Why  do  you  want  to  stick  here?"  he  cried.  ''It  can't 
pay  you  people  to  fool  around  like  this.  Didn't  you  worry 
just  now  about  moving  your  governor?  Well,  the  police 
would  move  him  for  you ;  and  from  Singapore  you  can 
go  on  to  the  east  coast  of  Africa." 

"I'll  be  hanged  if  the  fellow  isn't  up  to  that  silly 
trick!"  was  Ricardo's  comment,  spoken  in  an  ominous 
tone  which  recalled  Schomberg  to  the  realities  of  his 
position. 

"No!  No!"  he  protested.  "It's  a  manner  of  speak- 
ing. Of  course  I  wouldn't." 

"I  think  that  trouble  about  the  girl  has  really  muddled 
your  brains.  Mr.  Schomberg.  Believe  me,  you  had  better 
part  friends  with  us ;  for,  deportation  or  no  deportation, 
you'll  be  seeing  one  of  us  turning  up  before  long  to  pay 
you  off  for  any  nast}'  dodge  you  may  be  hatching  in  that 
fat  head  of  yours." 

''Gott  im  Himmel!"  groaned  Schomberg.  "Will  nothing  ' 
move  him  out  ?  Will  he  stop  here  immer — I  mean  always  ? 
Suppose  I  were  to  make  it  worth  your  while,  couldn't 
you " 

"Xo,"  Ricardo  interrupted.  '"I  couldn't,  unless  I  had 
something  to  lever  him  out  with.  I've  told  you  that  be- 
fore." 

"An  inducement?"  muttered  Schomberg. 

"Ay.  The  east  coast  of  Africa  isn't  -good  enough.  He 
told  me  the  other  day  that  it  will  have  to  wait  till  he  is 
ready  for  it ;  and  he  may  not  be  ready  for  a  long  time, 
because  the  east  coast  can't  run  away,  and  no  one  is 
likely  to  run  off  with  it." 

These  remarks,  whether  considered  as  truisms  or  as 
depicting  ^Ir.  Jones's  mental  state,  were  distinctly  dis- 
couraging to  the  long-suftering  Schomberg;  but  there  is 
truth  in  the  well-known  saying  that  places  the  darkest 
hour  before  the  dawn.  The  sound  of  words,  apart  from 
the  context,  has  its  power;  and  these  two  words,  "run 


VICTORY  147 

off/'  had  a  special  affinity  to  the  hotel-keeper's  haunting 
idea.  It  was  always  present  in  his  brain,  and  now  it  came 
forward  evoked  by  a  purely  fortuitous  expression.  No, 
nobody  could  run  off  with  a  continent;  but  Heyst  had 
run  off  with  the  girl! 

Ricardo  could  have  had  no  conception  of  the  cause 
of  Schomberg's  changed  expression.  Yet  it  was  notice- 
able enough  to  interest  him  so  much  that  he  stopped 
the  careless  swinging  of  his  leg  and  said,  looking  at  the 
hotel-keeper : 

"There's  not  much  use  arguing  against  that  sort  of 
talk— is  there?" 

Schomberg  was  not  listening. 

"I  could  put  you  on  another  track,"  he  said  slowly, 
and  stopped,  as  if  suddenly  choked  by  an  unholy  emo- 
tion of  intense  eagerness  combined  with  fear  of  failure. 
Ricardo  waited,  attentive,  yet  not  without  a  certain  con- 
tempt. 

"On  the  track  of  a  man-!"  Schomberg  uttered  con- 
vulsively, and  paused  again,  consulting  his  rage  and  his 
conscience. 

"The  man  in  the  moon,  eh?"  suggested  Ricardo,  in  a 
jeering  murmur. 

Schomberg  shook  his  head. 

"It  would  be  nearly  as  safe  to  rook  him  as  if  he  were 
the  man  in  the  moon.  You  go  and  try.  It  isn't  so  very  far." 

He  reflected.  These  men  were  thieves  and  murderers 
as  well  as  gamblers.  Their  fitness  for  purposes  of  ven- 
geance was  appallingly  complete.  But  he  preferred  not 
to  think  of  it  in  detail.  He  put  it  to  himself  summaril}/ 
that  he  would  be  paying  Heyst  out  and  would,  at  the 
same  time,  relieve  himself  of  these  men's  oppression.  He 
had  only  to  let  loose  his  natural  gift  for  talking  scandal- 
ously about  his  fellow  creatures.  And  in  this  case  his 
great  practice  in  it  was  assisted  by  hate,  which,  like  love, 
has  an  eloquence  of  its  own.  With  the  utmost  ease  he 


148  VICTORY 

portrayed  for  Ricardo,  now  seriously  attentive,  a  Heyst 
fattened  by  years  of  private  and  public  rapines,  the 
murderer  of  Morrison,  the  swindler  of  many  shareholders, 
a  wonderful  mixture  of  craft  and  impudence,  of  deep 
purposes  and  simple  wiles,  of  mystery  and  futility.  In 
this  exercise  of  his  natural  function  Schomberg  revived, 
the  colour  coming  back  to  his  face,  loquacious,  florid, 
eager,  his  manliness  set  off  by  the  military  bearing. 

''That's  the  exact  story.  He  was  seen  hanging  about  this 
part  of  the  world  for  years,  spying  into  everybody's 
business;  but  I  am  the  only  one  who  has  seen  through 
him  from  the  first — contemptible,  double-faced,  stick-at- 
nothing,  dangerous  fellow." 

''Dangerous,  is  he?" 

Schomberg  came  to  himself  at  the  sound  of  Ricardo's 
voice. 

"Well,  you  know  what  I  mean,"  he  said  uneasily.  "A 
lying,  circumventing,  soft-spoken,  polite,  stuck-up  rascal. 
Nothing  open  about  him." 

Mr.  Ricardo  had  slipped  off  the  table,  and  was  prowling 
about  the  room  in  an  oblique,  noiseless  manner.  He 
flashed  a  grin  at  Schomberg  in  passing,  and  a  snarling: 

"Ah!  H'm!" 

"Well,  what  more  dangerous  do  you  want?"  argued 
Schomberg.  "He's  in  no  way  a  fighting  man,  I  believe," 
he  added  negligently. 

"And  you  say  he  has  been  living  alone  there?" 

"Like  the  man  in  the  moon,"  answered  Schomberg 
readily.  "There's  no  one  that  cares  a  rap  what  becomes 
of  him.  He  has  been  lying  low,  you  understand,  after 
bagging  all  that  plunder." 

"Plunder,  eh?  Why  didn't  he  go  home  with  it?"  in- 
quired Ricardo. 

The  henchman  of  "plain  Mr.  Jones"  was  beginning 
to  think  that  this  was  something  worth  looking  into. 
And  he  was  pursuing  truth  in  the  manner  of  men  of 


VICTORY  149 

sounder  morality  and  purer  intentions  than  his  own ;  that 
is  he  pursued  it  in  the  light  of  his  own  experience  and 
prejudices.  For  facts,  whatever  their  origin  (and  God 
only  knows  where  they  come  from),  can  be  only  tested 
by  our  own  particular  suspicions.  Ricardo  was  suspicious 
all  round.  Schomberg,  such  is  thie  tonic  power  of  recov- 
ered self-esteem,  Schomberg  retorted  fearlessly: 

"Go  home?  Why  don't  you  go  home?  To  hear  your 
talk,  you  must  have  made  a  pretty  considerable  pile  going 
round  winning  people's  money.  You  ought  to  be  ready 
by  this  time." 

Ricardo  stopped  to  look  at  Schomberg  with  surprise. 

"You  think  yourself  very  clever,  don't  you?"  he  said. 

Schomberg  just  then  was  so  conscious  of  being  clever 
that  the  snarling  irony  left  him  unmoved.  There  was 
positively  a  smile  in  his  noble  Teutonic  beard,  the  first 
smile  for  weeks.  He  was  in  a  felicitous  vein. 

"How  do  you  know  that  he  wasn't  thinking  of  going 
home?  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  was  on  his  way  home." 

"And  how  do  I  know  that  you  are  not  amusing  your- 
self by  spinning  out  a  blamed  fairy  tale?"  interrupted 
Ricardo  roughly.  "I  wonder  at  myself  listening  to  the 
silly  rot!" 

Schomberg  received  this  turn  of  temper  unmoved. 
He  did  not  require  to  be  very  subtly  observant  to  notice 
that  he  had  managed  to  arouse  some  sort  of  feeling, 
perhaps  of  greed,  in  Ricardo's  breast. 

"You  won't  believe  me  ?  Well !  You  can  ask  any- 
body that  comes  here  if  that — ^that  Swede  hadn't  got 
as  far  as  this  house  on  his  way  home.  Why  should  he 
turn  up  here  if  not  for  that?  You  ask  anybody." 

"Ask,  indeed!"  returned  the  other.  "Catch  me  asking 
at  large  about  a  man  I  mean  to  drop  on!  Such  jobs  must 
be  done  on  the  quiet — or  not  at  all." 

The  peculiar  intonation  of  the  last  phrase  touched  the 
nape  of  Schomberg's  neck  with  a  chill.  He  cleared  his 


I50  VICTORY 

throat  slightly  and  looked  away  as  though  he  had  heard 
something  indelicate.  Then,  with  a  jump  as  it  were: 

"Of  course  he  didn't  tell  me.  Is  it  likely?  But  haven't 
I  got  eyes?  Haven't  I  got  my  common  sense  to  tell  me? 
I  can  see  through  people.  By  the  same  token,  he  called  on 
the  Tesmans.  Why  did  he  call  on  the  Tesmans  two  days 
running,  eh?  You  don't  know?  You  can't  tell?" 

He  waited  complacently  till  Ricardo  had  finished 
swearing  quite  openly  at  him  for  a  confounded  chatterer, 
and  then  went  on : 

"A  fellow  doesn't  go  to  a  counting-house  in  business 
hours  for  a  chat  about  the  weather,  two  days  running. 
Then  why?  To  close  his  account  with  them  one  day,  and 
to  get  his  money  out  the  next!  Clear,  what?" 

Ricardo,  with  his  trick  of  looking  one  way  and  moving 
another,  approached  Schomberg  slowly. 

"To  get  his  money?"  he  purred. 

''Geunss/'  snapped  Schomberg  with  impatient  superi- 
ority. ''What  else?  That  is,  only  the  money  he  had  with 
the  Tesmans.  What  he  has  buried  or  put  away  on  the 
island,  devil  only  knows.  When  you  think  of  the  lot  of 
hard  cash  that  passed  through  that  man's  hands,  for 
wages  and  stores  and  all  that — and  he's  just  a  cunning 
thief,  I  tell  you."  Ricardo's  hard  stare  discomposed  the 
hotel-keeper,  and  he  added  in  an  embarrassed  tone:  "I 
mean  a  common,  sneaking  thief — no  account  at  all.  And  he 
calls  himself  a  Swedish  baron,  too!  Tfui !" 

"He's  a  baron,  is  he?  That  foreign  nobility  ain't  much," 
commented  Mr.  Ricardo  seriously.  ''And  then  what?  He 
hung  about  here?" 

"Yes,  he  hung  about,"  said  Schomberg,  making  a  wry 
mouth.  "He — ^hung  about.  That's  it.  Hung " 

His  voice  died  out.  Curiosity  was  depicted  in  Ricardo's 
countenance. 

"Just  like  that ;  for  nothing?  And  then  turned  about  and 
went  back  to  that  island  again?" 


VICTORY  151 

"And  went  back  to  that  island  again,"  Schomberg 
echoed  Hfelessly,  fixing  his  gaze  on  the  floor. 

"What*s  the  .matter  with  you?"  asked  Ricardo  with 
genuine  surprise.  "What  is  it?" 

Schomberg,  without  looking  up,  made  an  impatient 
gesture.  His  face  was  crimson,  and  he  kept  it  lowered. 
Ricardo  went  back  to  the  point. 

"Well,  but  how  do  you  account  for  it?  What  was 
his  reason?  What  did  he  go  back  to  the  island  for'?" 

"Honeymoon!"  spat  out  Schomberg  viciously.. 

Perfectly  still,  his  eyes  downcast,  he  suddenly,  with 
no  preliminary  stir,  hit  the  table  with  his  fist  a  blow  which 
caused  the  utterly  unprepared  Ricardo  to  leap  aside.  And 
only  then  did  Schomberg  look  up  with  a  dull,  resentful 
expression. 

Ricardo  stared  hard  for  a  moment,  spun  on  his  heel,, 
walked  to  the  end  of  the  room,  came  back  smartly  and 
muttered  a  profound  "Ay!  Ay!"  above  Schomberg's  rigid 
head.  That  the  hotel-keeper  was  capable  of  a  great  moral 
effort  was  proved  by  a  gradual  return  of  his  severe,, 
Lieutenant-of-the-Reserve  manner. 

"Ay,  ay!"  repeated  Ricardo  more  deliberately  than 
before,  and  as  if  after  a  further  survey  of  the  circum- 
stances. "I  wish  I  hadn't  asked  you,  or  that  you  had 
told  me  a  lie.  It  don't  suit  me  to  know  that  there's  a 
woman  mixed  up  in  this  affair.  What's  she  like?  It's 
the  girl  you " 

"Leave  off!"  muttered  Schomberg,  utterly  pitiful  be- 
hind his  stiff  military  front. 

"Ay,  ay!"  Ricardo  ejaculated  for  the  third  time,  more 
and  more  enlightened  and  perplexed.  "Can't  bear  to  talk 
about  it — so  bad  as  that?  And  yet  I  would  bet  she  isn't 
a  miracle  to  look  at." 

Schomberg  made  a  gesture  as  if  he  didn't  know,  as  if 
he  didn't  care.  Then  he  squared  his  shoulders  and  frowned 
at  vacancy. 


152  VICTORY 

"Swedish  baron — h'm!"  Ricardo  continued  medi- 
tatively. *'I  believe  the  governor  would  think  that  business 
worth  looking  up,  quite,  if  I  put  it  to  him  properly.  The 
governor  likes  a  duel,  if  you  will  call  it  so;  but  I  don't 
know  a  man  that  can  stand  up  to  him  on  the  square.  Have 
you  ever  seen  a  cat  play  with  a  mouse?  It's  a  pretty 
sight." 

Ricardo,  with  his  voluptuously  gleaming  eyes  and  the 
coy  expression,  looked  so  much  like  a  cat  that  Schomberg 
would  have  felt  all  the  alarm  of  a  mouse  if  other  feelings 
had  not  had  complete  possession  of  his  breast. 

**There  are  no  lies  between  you  and  me,"  he  said,  more 
steadily  than  he  thought  he  could  speak. 

"What's  the  good  now?  He  funks  women.  In  that 
Mexican  pueblo  where  we  lay  grounded  on  our  beef- 
bones,  so  to  speak,  I  used  to  go  to  dances  of  an  evening. 
The  girls  there  would  ask  me  if  the  English  caballero  in 
the  posada  was  a  monk  in  disguise,  or  if  he  had  taken  a 
vow  to  the  sanctissinta  madre  not  to  speak  to  a  woman  or 

whether You  can  imagine   what   fairly   free-spoken 

girls  will  ask  when  they  come  to  the  point  of  not  caring 
what  they  say;  and  it  used  to  vex  me.  Yes,  the  governor 
funks  facing  women." 

"One  woman?"  interjected  Schomberg  in  guttural 
tones. 

"One  may  be  more  awkward  to  deal  with  than  two,  or 
two  hundred,  for  that  matter.  In  a  place  that's  full  of 
women  you  needn't  look  at  them  unless  you  like;  but  if 
you  go  into  a  room  where  there  is  only  one  woman,  young 
or  old,  pretty  or  ugly,  you  have  got  to  face  her.  And, 
unless  you  are  after  her,  then — ^the  governor  is  right 
enough — she's  in  the  way." 

"Why  notice  them?"  muttered  Schomberg.  "What  can 
they  do?" 

"Make  a  noise,  if  nothing  else,"  opined  Mr.  Ricardo 
curtly,  with  the  distaste  of  a  man  whose  path  is.  a  path 


VICTORY  IS3 

of  silence;  for  indeed,  nothing  is  more  odious  than  a 
noise  when  one  is  engaged  in  a  weighty  and  absorbing 
card  game.  "Noise,  noise,  my  friend,"  he  went  on 
forcibly;  "confounded  screeching  about  something  or 
other,  and  I  like  it  no  more  than  the  governor  does.  But 
with  the  governor  there's  something  else  besides.  He  can't 
stand  them  at  all." 

He  paused  to  reflect  on  this  psychological  phenomenon, 
and  as  no  philosopher  was  at  hand  to  tell  him  that  there 
is  no  strong  sentiment  without  some  terror,  as  there  is  no 
real  religion  without  a  little  fetichism,  he  emitted  his 
own  conclusion,  which  surely  could  not  go  to  the  root  of 
the  matter. 

"I'm  hanged  if  I  don't  think  they  are  to  him  what  liquor 
is  to  me.  Brandy — pah !" 

He  made  a  disgusted  face,  and  produced  a  genuine 
shudder.  Schomberg  listened  to  him  in  wonder.  It  looked 
as  if  the  very  scoundrelism  of  that — ^that  Swede  would 
pjrotect  him;  the  spoil  of  his  iniquity  standing  between 
the  thief  and  the  retribution. 

"That's  so,  old  buck."  Ricardo  broke  the  silence  after 
contemplating  Schomberg's  mute  dejection  with  a  sort  of 
sympathy.  "I  don't  think  this  trick  will  work." 

"But  that's  silly,"  whispered  the  man  deprived  of  the 
vengeance  which  he  had  seemed  already  to  hold  in  his 
hand,  by  a  mysterious  and  exasperating  idiosyncrasy. 

"Don't  you  set  yourself  to  judge  a  gentleman."  Ricardo 
without  anger  administered  a  moody  rebuke.  "Even  I 
can't  understand  the  governor  thoroughly.  And  I  am  an 
Englishman  and  his  follower.  No ;  I  don't  think  I  care 
to  put  it  before  him,  sick  as  I  am  of  staying  here." 

Ricardo  could  not  be  more  sick  of  staying  than  Schom- 
berg was  of  seeing  him  stay.  Schomberg  believed  so 
firmly  in  the  reality  of  Heyst  as  created  by  his  own 
power  of  false  inferences,  of  his  hate,  of  his  love  of 
scandal,  that  he  could  not  contain  a  stifled  cry  of  con'- 


154  VICTORY 

viction  as  sincere  as  most  of  our  convictions,  the  disguised 
servants  of  our  passions,  can  appear  at  a  supreme  mo- 
ment. 

''It  would  have  been  Hke  going  to  pick  up  a  nugget  of 
a  thousand  pounds,  or  two  or  three  times  as  much,  for  all 
I  know.  No  trouble,  no— — " 

'The  petticoat's  the  trouble,''  Ricardo  struck  in. 

He  had  resumed  his  noiseless,  feline,  oblique  prowling, 
in  which  an  observ^er  would  have  detected  a  new  char- 
acter of  excitement,  such  as  a  wild  animal  of  the  cat 
species,  anxious  to  make  a  spring,  might  betray.  Schom- 
berg  saw  nothing.  It  would  probably  have  cheered  his 
drooping  spirits;  but  in  a  general  way  he  preferred  not 
to  look  at  Ricardo.  Ricardo.  however,  with  one  of  his 
slanting,  gliding,  restless  glances,  observed  the  bitter  smile 
on  Schomberg's  bearded  lips — ^the  unmistakable  smile  of 
ruined  hopes. 

"You  are  a  pretty  unforgiving  sort  of  chap,"  he  said, 
stopping  for  a  moment  with  an  air  of  interest.  "Hang 
me  if  I  ever  saw  anybody  look  so  disajDpointed !  I  bet 
you  would  send  black  plague  to  that  island  if  you  only 
knew  how — eh,  what?  Plague  too  good  for  them?  Ha, 
ha,  ha !" 

He  bent  down  to  stare  at  Schomberg  who  sat  unstir- 
ring  with  stony  eyes  and  set  features,  and  apparently 
deaf  to  the  rasping  derision  of  that  laughter  so  close  to 
his  red  fleshy  ear. 

"Black  plague  too  good  for  them,  ha,  ha!''  Ricardo 
pressed  the  point  on  the  tormented  hotel-keeper.  Schom- 
berg kept  his  eyes  down  obstinately. 

"I  don't  wish  any  harm  to  the  girl."  he  muttered. 

"But  she  did  bolt  from  you?  A  fair  bilk?  Come!" 

"Devil  only  knows  what  that  villainous  Swede  had 
done  to  her — w^hat  he  promised  her,  how  he  frightened 
her.  She  couldn't  have  cared  for  him,  I  know."  Schom- 
berg's  vanity  clung  to  the  belief  in  some  atrocious,  ex- 


VICTORY  155 

traordinary  means  of  seduction  employed  by  Heyst. 
*'Look  how  he  bewitched  that  poor  Morrison,"  he  mur- 
mured. 

"Ah,  Morrison — got  all  his  money,  what?" 

"Yes— and  his  life." 

"Terrible  fellow,  that  Swedish  baron!  How  is  one  to 
get  at  him?" 

Schomberg  exploded. 

"Three  against  one!  Are  you  shy?  Do  you  want  me 
to  give  you  a  letter  of  introduction?" 

"You  ought  to  look  at  yourself  in  a  glass,"  Ricardo 
said  quietly.  "Dash  me  if  you  don't  get  a  stroke  of  some 
kind  presently.  And  this  is  the  fellow  who  says  women 
can  do  nothing!  That  one  will  do  for  you,  unless  you 
manage  to  forget  her." 

"I  wish  I  could,"  Schomberg  admitted  earnestly.  "And 
it's  all  the  doing  of  that  Swede.  I  don't  get  enough  sleep, 
Mr.  Ricardo.  And  then,  to  finish  me  off,  you  gentlemen 
turn  up   ...   as  if  I  hadn't  enough  worry." 

"That's  done  you  good,"  suggested  the  secretary  with 
ironic  seriousness.  "Takes  your  mind  off  that  silly  trouble. 
At  your  age  too." 

He  checked  himself,  as  if  in  pity,  and  changing  his 
tone : 

"I  would  really  like  to  oblige  you  while  doing  a  stroke 
of  business  at  the  same  time." 

"A  good  stroke,"  insisted  Schomberg,  as  if  it  were 
mechanically.  In  his  simplicity  he  was  not  able  to  give 
up  the  idea  which  had  entered  his  head.  An  idea  must  be 
driven  out  by  another  idea,  and  with  Schomberg  ideas 
were  rare  and  therefore  tenacious.  "Minted  gold,"  he 
murmured  with  a  sort  of  anguish. 

Such  an  expressive  combination  of  words  was  not 
without  effect  on  Ricardo.  Both  these  men  were  amen- 
able to  the  influence  of  verbal  suggestions.  The  secretary 
of  "plain  Mr.  Jones"  sighed  and  murmured: 


1S6  VICTORY 

"Yes.  But  how  is  one  to  get  at  it?" 

"Being  three  to  one,"  said  Schomberg,  "I  suppose  you 
could  get  it  for  the  asking." 

"One  would  think  the  fellow  lived  next  door," 
Ricardo  growled  impatiently.  "Hang  it  all,  can't  you 
understand  a  plain  question?  I  have  asked  you  the  way." 

Schomberg  seemed  to  revive. 

"The  way?" 

The  torpor  of  deceived  hopes  underlying  his  super- 
ficial changes  of  mood  had  been  pricked  by  these  words 
which  seemed  pointed  with  purpose. 

"The  way  is  over  the  water,  of  course,"  said  the  hotel- 
keeper.  "For  people  like  you,  three  days  in  a  good,  big 
boat  is  nothing.  It's  no  more  than  a  little  outing,  a  bit 
of  a  change.  At  this  season  the  Java  Sea  is  a  pond.  I 
have  an  excellent,  safe  boat — a  ship's  life-boat — carry- 
thirty,  let  alone  three,  and  a  child  could  handle  her.  You 
wouldn't  get  a  wet  face  at  this  time  of  the  year.  You 
might  call  it  a  pleasure-trip." 

"And  yet,  having  this  boat,  you  didn't  go  after  her  your- 
self— or  after  him?  Well,  you  are  a  fine  fellow  for  a 
disappointed  lover." 

Schomberg  gave  a  start  at  the  suggestion. 

"I  am  not  three  men,"  he  said  sulkily,  as  the  shortest 
answer  of  the  several  he  could  have  given. 

"Oh,  I  know  your  sort,"  Ricardo  let  fall  negligently. 
"You  are  like  most  people — or  perhaps  just  a  little  more 
peaceable  than  the  rest  of  the  buying  and  selling  gang 
that  bosses  this  rotten  show.  Well,  well,  you  respectable 
citizen,"  he  went  on,  "let  us  go  thoroughly  into  the  mat- 
ter." 

When  Schomberg  had  been  made  to  understand  that 
Mr.  Jones's  henchman  was  ready  to  discuss,  in  his  own 
words,  "this  boat  of  yours,  with  courses  and  distances," 
and  such  concrete  matters  of  no  good  augury^  to  that  vil- 


VICTORY  i5> 

lainous  Swede,  he  recovered  his  soldierly  bearing,  squared 
his  shoulders,  and  asked  in  his  military  manner : 

"You  wish,  then,  to  proceed  with  the  business?" 

Ricardo  nodded.  He  had  a  great  mind  to,  he  said.  A 
gentleman  had  to  be  humoured  as  much  as  possible;  but 
he  must  be  managed,  too,  on  occasions,  for  his  own  good. 
And  it  was  the  business  of  the  right  sort  of  "follower*' 
to  know  the  proper  time  and  the  proper  methods  of  that 
delicate  part  of  his  duty.  Having  exposed  this  theory 
Ricardo  proceeded  to  the  application. 

"I've  never  actually  lied  to  him,"  he  said,  "and  I  ain't 
going  to  now.  I  shall  just  say  nothing  about  the  girl.  He 
will  have  to  get  over  the  shock  the  best  he  can.  Hang 
it  all !  Too  much  humouring  won't  do  here." 

"Funny  thing,"  Schomberg  observed  crisply. 

"Is  it?  Ay,  you  wouldn't  mind  taking  a  woman  by  the 
throat  in  some  dark  corner  and  nobody  by,  I  bet !" 

Ricardo's  dreadful,  vicious,  cat-like  readiness  to  get  his 
claws  out  at  any  moment  startled  Schomberg  as  usual. 
But  it  was  provoking  too. 

"And  you?"  he  defended  himself.  "Don't  you  want  me 
to  believe  you  are  up  to  anything?" 

"I,  my  boy?  Oh,  yes.  I  am  not  that  gentleman;  neither 
are  you.  Take  'em  by  the  throat  or  chuck  'em  under  the 
chin  is  all  one  to  me — almost,"  affirmed  Ricardo,  with 
something  obscurely  ironical  in  his  complacency.  "Now, 
as  to  this  business.  A  three  days'  jaunt  in  a  good  boat 
isn't  a  thing  to  frighten  people  like  us.  You  are  right, 
so  far;  but  there  are  other  details." 

Schomberg  was  ready  enough  to  enter  into  details.  He 
explained  that  he  had  a  small  plantation,  with  a  fairly 
habitable  hut  on  it,  on  Madura.  He  proposed  that  his 
guest  should  start  from  town  in  his  boat,  as  if  going  for 
an  excursion  to  that  rural  spot.  The  custom-house  people 
on  the  quay  were  usfed  to  see  his  boat  go  off  on  such  trips. 


158  VICTORY 

From  Madura,  after  some  repose  and  on  a  convenient 
day,  Mr.  Jones  and  party  would  make  the  real  start.  It 
would  all  be  plain  sailing.  Schomberg  undertook  to  pro- 
vision the  boat.  The  greatest  hardship  the  voyagers  need 
apprehend  would  be  a  mild  shower  of  rain.  At  that  season 
of  the  year  there  were  no  serious  thtmderstorms. 

Schomberg's  heart  began  to  thump  as  he  saw  himself 
nearing  his  vengeance.  His  speech  was  thick  but  per- 
suasive. 

"No  risk  at  all — none  whatever!" 

Ricardo  dismissed  these  assurances  of  safet}'  with  an 
impatient  gesture.  He  was  thinking  of  other  risks. 

"The  getting  away  from  here  is  all  right;  but  we  may 
be  sighted  at  sea,  and  that  may  bring  awlsvvardness  later 
on.  A  ship's  boat  with  three  white  men  in  her,  knocking 
about  out  of  sight  of  land,  is  boimd  to  make  talk.  Are  we 
likely  to  be  seen  on  our  way?" 

"Xo,  unless  by  native  craft,"  said  Schomberg. 

Ricardo  nodded,  satisfied.  Both  these  white  men  looked 
on  native  life  as  a  mere  play  of  shadows.  A  play  of  shad- 
ows the  dominant  race  could  walk  through  unaffected  and 
disregarded  in  the  pursuit  of  its  incomprehensible  aims  and 
needs.  Xo.  X'ative  craft  did  not  count,  of  course.  It  was 
an  empty,  solitar}'  part  of  the  sea,  Schomberg  expounded 
further.  Only  the  Ternate  mail-boat  crossed  that  region 
about  the  8th  of  ever\^  month,  regularly — nowhere  near 
the  island,  though.  Rigid,  his  voice  hoarse,  his  heart 
thumping,  his  mind  concentrated  on  the  success  of  his 
plan,  the  hotel-keeper  multiplied  words,  as  if  to  keep  as 
many  of  them  as  possible  between  himself  and  the  mur- 
derous aspect  of  his  purpose. 

"So,  if  you  gentlemen  depart  from  my  plantation 
quietly  at  sunset  on  the  8th — always  best  to  make  a  start 
at  night,  with  a  land  breeze — it's  a  hundred  to  one — ^what 
am  I  saying? — it's  a  thousand  to  one  that  no  human  eye 
will  see  you  on  the  passage.  All  you've  got  to  do  is  to  keep 


VICTORY  159 

her  heading  northeast  for,  say,  fifty  hours;  perhaps  not 
quite  so  long.  There  will  always  be  draft  enough  to  keep  a 
boat  moving ;  you  may  reckon  on  that ;  and  then " 

The  muscles  about  his  waist  quivered  under  his  clothes 
with  eagerness,  with  impatience,  and  with  something  like 
apprehension,  the  true  nature  of  which  was  not  clear  to 
him.  And  he  did  not  want  to  investigate  it.  Ricardo  re- 
garded him  steadily,  with  those  dry  eyes  of  his  shining 
more  like  polished  stones  than  living  tissue. 

"And  then  what  ?"  he  asked. 

"And  then — why,  you  will  astonish  der  herr  baron — 
ha,  har 

Schomberg  seemed  to  force  the  words  and  the  laugh 
out  of  himself  in  a  hoarse  bass. 

"And  you  believe  he  has  all  that  plunder  by  him?" 
asked  Ricardo,  rather  perfunctorily,  because  the  fact 
seemed  to  him  extremely  probable  when  looked  at  all 
round  by  his  acute  mind. 

Schomberg  raised  his  hands  and  lowered  them  slowly. 

"How  can  it  be  otherwise  ?  He  was  going  home,  he  was 
on  his  way,  in  this  hotel.  Ask  people.  Was  it  likely  he 
would  leave  it  behind  him?" 

Ricardo  was  thoughtful.  Then,  suddenly  raising  his 
head,  he  remarked : 

"Steer  northeast  for  fifty  hours,  eh?  That's  not  much 
of  a  sailing  direction.  I've  heard  of  a  port  being  missed 
before  on  better  information.  Can't  you  say  what  sort  of 
landfall  a  fellow  may  expect?  But  I  suppose  you  have 
never  seen  that  island  yourself." 

Schomberg  admitted  that  he  had  not  seen  it,  in  a  tone 
in  which  a  man  congratulates  himself  on  having  escaped 
the  contamination  of  an  unsavoury  experience.  No,  cer- 
tainly not.  He  had  never  had  any  business  to  call  him 
there.  But  what  of  that?  He  could  give  Mr.  Ricardo  as 
good  a  sea-mark  as  anybody  need  wish  for.  He  laughed 
nervously.  Miss  itl  He  defied  any  one  that  came  within 


i6o  VICTORY 

fort}^  miles  of  it  to  miss  the  retreat  of  that  villainous 
Swede. 

*'What  do  you  think  of  a  pillar  of  smoke  by  day  and  a 
loom  of  fire  at  night?  There's  a  volcano  in  full  blast  near 
that  island — enough  to  guide  almost  a  blind  man.  What 
more  do  you  want  ?  An  active  volcano  to  steer  by  !'* 

These  last  words  he  roared  out  exultingly,  then  jumped 
up  and  glared.  The  door  to  the  left  of  the  bar  had  swung 
open,  and  Mrs.  Schomberg,  dressed  for  dut\%  stood  facing 
him  down  the  whole  length  of  the  room.  She  clung  to  the 
handle  for  a  moment,  then  came  in  and  glided  to  her  place, 
where  she  sat  down  to  stare  straight  before  her,  as  usual. 


PART    III 


( 


Tropical  nature  had  been  kind  to  the  failure  of  the 
commercial  enterprise.  The  desolation  of  the  headquar- 
ters of  the  Tropical  Belt  Coal  Company  had  been  screened 
from  the  side  of  the  sea;  from  the  side  where  prying 
eyes — if  any  were  sufficiently  interested,  either  in  malice 
or  in  sorrow — could  have  noted  the  decaying  bones  of  that 
once  sanguine  enterprise. 

Heyst  had  been  sitting  among  the  bones  buried  so  kindly 
in  the  grass  of  two  wet  seasons'  growth.  The  silence  of 
his  surroundings,  broken  only  by  such  sounds  as  a  distant 
roll  of  thunder,  the  lash  of  rain  through  the  foliage  of 
some  big  trees,  the  noise  of  the  wind  tossing  the  leaves  of 
the  forest,  and  of  the  short  seas  breaking  against  the 
shore,  favoured  rather  than  hindered  his  solitary  medita- 
tion. 

A  meditation  is  always — in  a  white  man,  at  least — 
more  or  less  an  interrogative  exercise.  Heyst  meditated 
in  simple  terms  on  the  mystery  of  his  actions;  and  he 
answered  himself  with  the  honest  reflection: 

"There  must  be  a  lot  of  the  original  Adam  in  me,  after 
all." 

He  reflected,  too,  with  the  sense  of  making  a  discov- 
ery, that  this  primeval  ancestor  is  not  easily  suppressed. 
The  oldest  voice  in  the  world  is  just  the  one  that  never 
ceases  to  speak.  If  anybody  could  have  silenced  its  im- 
perative echoes,  it  should  have  been  Heyst's .  father,  with 
his  contemptuous,  inflexible  negation  of  all  effort;  but 
apparently  he  could  not.  There  was  in  the  son  a  lot  of 
that  first  ancestor  who,  as  soon  as  he  could  uplift  his 

163 


i64  VICTORY 

muddy  frame  from  the  celestial  mould,  started  inspecting 
and  naming  the  animals  of  that  paradise  which  he  was  so 
soon  to  lose. 

Action — the  first  thought,  or  perhaps  the  first  impulse, 
on  earth!  The  barbed  hook,  baited  with  the  illusion  of 
progress,  to  bring  out  of  the  lightless  void  the  shoals  of 
unnumbered  generations ! 

"And  I,  the  son  of  my  father,  have  been  caught  too, 
like  the  silliest  fish  of  them  all,"  Heyst  said  to  himself. 

He  suffered.  He  was  hurt  by  the  sight  of  his  own  life, 
which  ought  to  have  been  a  masterpiece  of  aloofness.  He 
remembered  always  his  last  evening  with  his  father.  He 
remembered  the  thin  features,  the  great  mass  of  white 
hair,  and  the  ivory  complexion.  A  five-branched  candle- 
stick stood  on  a  little  table  by  the  side  of  the  easy  chair. 
They  had  been  talking  a  long  time.  The  noises  of  the  street 
had  died  out  one  by  one,  till  at  last,  in  the  moonlight,  the 
London  houses  began  to  look  like  the  tombs  of  an  unvis- 
ited,  imhonoured  cemeten,'  of  hopes. 

He  had  listened.  Then,  after  a  silence,  he  had  asked — 
for  he  was  really  young  then : 

"Is  there  no  guidance?" 

His  father  was  in  an  unexpectedly  soft  mood  on  that 
night,  w^hen  the  moon  swam  in  a  cloudless  sky  over  the 
begrimed  shado^vs  of  the  town. 

"You  still  believe  in  something,  then?"  he  said  in  a 
clear  voice,  which  had  been  growing  feeble  of  late.  "You 
believe  in  flesh  and  blood,  perhaps?  A  full  and  equable 
contempt  would  soon  do  away  with  that,  too.  But  since 
you  have  not  attained  to  it,  I  advise  you  to  cultivate  that 
form  of  contempt  which  is  called  pity.  It  is  perhaps  the 
least  difficult — always  remembering  that  you,  too,  if  you 
are  anything,  are  as  pitiful  as  the  rest,  yet  never  expect- 
ing any  pity  for  yourself." 

"What  is  one  to  do,  then?"  sighed  the  young  man,  re- 
garding his  father,  rigid  in  the  high-backed  chair. 


VICTORY  i6s 

"Look  on — make  no  sound,"  were  the  last  words  of  the 
man  who  had  spent  his  Hfe  in  blowing  blasts  upon  a  ter- 
rible trumpet  which  had  filled  heaven  and  earth  with 
ruins,  while  mankind  went  on  its  way  unheeding. 

That  very  night  he  died  in  his  bed,  so  quietly  that  they 
found  him  in  his  usual  attitude  of  sleep,  lying  on  his  side, 
one  hand  under  his  cheek,  and  his  knees  slightly  bent.  He 
had  not  even  straightened  his  legs. 

His  son  buried  the  silenced  destroyer  of  systems,  of 
hopes,  of  beliefs.  He  observed  that  the  death  of  that  bit- 
ter contemner  of  life  did  not  trouble  the  flow  of  life's 
stream,  where  men  and  women  go  by  thick  as  dust,  re- 
volving and  jostling  one  another  like  figures  cut  out  of 
cork  and  weighted  with  lead  just  sufficiently  to  keep  them 
in  their  proudly  upright  posture. 

After  the  funeral,  Heyst  sat  alone,  in  the  dusk,  and 
his  meditation  took  the  form  of  a  definite  vision  of  the 
stream,  of  the  fatuously  jostling;  nodding,  spinning  fig- 
ures hurried  irresistibly  along,  and  giving  no  sign  of  being 
aware  that  the  voice  on  the  bank  had  been  suddenly 
silenced.  .  .  .  Yes.  A  few  obituary  notices  generally  in- 
significant and  some  grossly  abusive.  The  son  had  read 
them  all  with  mournful  detachment. 

"This  is  the  hate  and  rage  of  their  fear,"  he  thought  to 
himself,  "and  also  of  wounded  vanity.  They  shriek  their 
little  shriek  as  they  fly  past.  I  suppose  I  ought  to  hate 
him  too.  .  .  ." 

He  became  aware  of  his  eyes  being  wet.  It  was  not 
that  the  man  was  his  father.  For  him  it  was  purely  a 
matter  of  hearsay  which  could  not  in  itself  cause  this 
emotion.  No !  It  was  because  he  had  looked  at  him  so  long 
that  he  missed  him  so  much.  The  dead  man  had  kept  him 
on  the  bank  by  his  side.  And  now  Heyst  felt  acutely  that 
he  was  alone  on  the  bank  of  the  stream.  In  his  pride  he 
determined  not  to  enter  it. 

A  few  slow  tears  rolled  down  his  face.  The  rooms. 


i66  VICTORY 

filling  with  shadows,  seemed  haunted  by  a  melancholy, 
uneasy  presence  which  could  not  express  itself.  The  young 
man  got  up  with  a  strange  sense  of  making  way  for  some- 
thing impalpable  that  claimed  possession,  went  out  of  the 
house,  and  locked  the  door.  A  fortnight  later  he  started  on 
his  travels — ^to  "look  on  and  never  make  a  sound." 

The  elder  Heyst  had  left  behind  him  a  little  money  and 
a  certain  quantity  of  movable  objects,  such  as  books, 
tables,  chairs,  and  pictures,  which  might  have  complained 
of  heartless  desertion  after  many  years  of  faithful  ser^'ice ; 
for  there  is  a  soul  in  things.  Heyst,  our  Heyst,  had  often 
thought  of  them,  reproachful  and  mute,  shrouded  and 
locked  up  in  those  rooms,  far  away  in  London  with  the 
sounds  of  the  street  reaching  them  faintly,  and  sometimes 
a  little  sunshine,  when  the  blinds  were  pulled  up  and  the 
windows  opened  from  time  to  time  in  pursuance  of  his 
original  instructions  and  later  reminders.  It  seemed  as  if 
in  his  conception  of  a  world  not  worth  touching,  and  per- 
haps not  substantial  enough  to  grasp,  these  objects  familiar 
to  his  childhood  and  his  youth  and  associated  with  the 
memory  of  an  old  man.  were  the  only  realities,  something 
having  an  absolute  existence.  He  would  never  have  them 
sold,  or  even  moved  from  the  places' they  occupied  when 
he  looked  upon  them  last.  When  he  was  advised  from 
London  that  his  lease  had  expired,  and  that  the  house, 
with  some  others  as  like  it  as  tvvo  peas,  was  to  be  demol- 
ished, he  was  surprisingly  distressed. 

He  had  entered  by  then  the  broad,  human  path  of  in- 
consistencies. Already  the  Tropical  Belt  Coal  Company 
was  in  existence.  He  sent  instructions  to  have  some  of  the 
things  sent  out  to  him  at  Samburan,  just  as  any  ordinary- . 
credulous  person  would  have  done.  They  came,  torn  out 
from  their  long  repose — a  lot  of  books,  some  chairs  and 
tables,  his  father's  portrait  in  oils,  which  surprised  Heyst 
by  its  air  of  youth,  because  he  remembered  his  father  as 
a  much  older  man;  a  lot  of  small  objects,  such  as  candle- 


VICTORY  167 

sticks,  inkstands,  and  statuettes  from  his  father's  study, 
which  surprised  him  because  they  looked  so  old  and  so 
much  worn. 

The  manager  of  the  Tropical  Belt  Coal  Company,  un- 
packing them  on  the  verandah  in  the  shade  besieged  by  a 
fierce  sunshine,  must  have  felt  like  a  remorseful  apostate 
before  these  relics.  He  handled  them  tenderly;  and  it 
was  perhaps  their  -presence  there  which  attached  him  to 
the  island  when  he  woke  up  to  the  failure  of  his  apostasy. 
Whatever  the  decisive  reason,  Heyst  had  remained  where 
another  would  have  been  glad  to  be  off.  The  excellent 
Davidson  had  discovered  the  fact  without  discovering  the 
reason,  and  took  a  humane  interest  in  Heyst's  strange  ex- 
istence, while  at  the  same  time  his  native  delicacy  kept 
him  from  intruding  on  the  other's  whim  of  solitude.  He 
could  not  possibly  guess  that  Heyst,  alone  on  the  island, 
felt  neither  more  nor  less  lonely  than  in  any  other  place, 
desert  or  populous.  Davidson's  concern  was,  if  one  may 
express  it  so,  the  danger  of  spiritual  starvation;  but  this 
was  a  spirit  which  had  renounced  all  outside  nourishment, 
and  was  sustaining  itself  proudly  on  its  own  contempt  of 
the  usual  coarse  aliments  which  life  offers  to  the  common 
appetites  of  men. 

Neither  was  Heyst's  body  in  danger  of  starvation,  as 
Schomberg  had  so  confidently  asserted.  At  the  beginning 
of  the  company's  operations  the  island  had  been  pro- 
visioned in  a  manner  which  had  outlasted  the  need.  Heyst 
did  not  need  to  fear  hunger;  and  his  very  loneliness  had 
not  been  without  some  alleviation.  Of  the  crowd  of  im- 
ported Chinese  labourers,  one  at  least  had  remained  in 
Samburan,  solitary  and  strange,  like  a  swallow  left  behind 
at  the  migrating  season  of  his  tribe. 

Wang  was  not  a  common  coolie.  He  had  been  a  servant 
to  white  men  before.  The  agreement  between  him  and 
Heyst  consisted  in  the  exchange  of  a  few  words  on  the 
day  when  the  last  batch  of  the  mine  coolies  was  leaving 


i68  VICTORY 

Samburan.  Heyst,  leaning  over  the  balustrade  of  the 
verandah,  was  looking  on,  as  calm  in  appearance  as 
though  he  had  never  departed  from  the  doctrine  that  this 
world,  for  the  wise,  is  nothing  but  an  amusing  spectacle. 
Wang  came  round  the  house,  and  standing  below,  raised 
up  his  yellow,  thin  face. 

"All  finish?"  he  asked. 

Heyst  nodded  slightly  from  above,  glancing  towards 
the  jetty.  A  crowd  of  blue-clad  figures  with  yellow  faces 
and  calves  was  being  hustled  down  into  the  boats  of  the 
chartered  steamer  lying  well  out,  like  a  painted  ship  on  a 
painted  sea;  painted  in  crude  colours,  without  shadows, 
without  feeling,  with  brutal  precision. 

"You  had  better  hurry  up  if  you  don't  want  to  be  left 
behind." 

But  the  Chinaman  did  not  move. 

"Me  stop,""  he  declared.  Heyst  looked  down  at  him  for 
the  first  time. 

"You  want  to  stop  here?" 

"Yes." 

"What  were  you?  What  was  your  work  here?" 

"Mess-loom  boy." 

"Do  you  want  to  stay  with  me  here  as  my  boy?"  in- 
quired Heyst,  surprised. 

The  Chinaman  unexpectedly  put  on  a  deprecatory  ex- 
pression, and  said,  after  a  marked  pause : 

"Can  do." 

"You  needn't,"  said  Heyst,  "unless  you  like.  I  propose 
to  stay  on  here — it  may  be  for  a  very  long  time.  I  have  no 
power  to  make  you  go  if  you  wish  to  remain,  but  I  don't 
see  why  you  should." 

"Catchee  one  piecee  wife,"  remarked  Wang  unemotion- 
ally, and  marched  off,  turning  his  back  on  the  wharf  and 
the  great  world  beyond,  represented  by  the  steamer  wait- 
ing for  her  boats. 

Heyst  learned  presently  that  Wang  had  persuaded  one 


VICTORY  169 

of  the  women  of  the  Alfuro  village,  on  the  west  shore 
of  the  island,  beyond  the  central  ridge,  to  come  over  to 
live  with  him  in  a  remote  part  of  the  company's  clearing. 
It  was  a  curious  case,  inasmuch  as  the  Alfuros,  having 
been  frightened  by  the  sudden  invasion  of  Chinamen, 
had  blocked  the  path  over  the  ridge  by  felling  a  few  trees, 
and  had  kept  strictly  on  their  own  side.  The  coolies,  as  a 
body,  mistrusting  the  manifest  mildness  of  these  harmless 
fisher-folk,  had  kept  to  their  lines,  without  attempting  to 
cross  the  island.  Wang  was  the  brilliant  exception.  He 
must  have  been  uncommonly  fascinating,  in  a  way  that 
was  not  apparent  to  Heyst,  or  else  uncommonly  persua- 
sive. The  woman's  services  to  Heyst  were  limited  to  the 
fact  that  she  had  anchored  Wang  to  the  spot  by  her 
charms,  which  remained  unknown  to  the  white  man,  be- 
cause she  never  came  near  the  houses.  The  couple  lived  at 
the  edge  of  the  forest,  and  she  could  sometimes  be  seen 
gazing  towards  the  bungalow  shading  her  eyes  with  her 
hand.  Even  from  a  distance  she  appeared  to  be  a  shy,  wild 
creature,  and  Heyst,  anxious  not  to  try  her  primitive 
nerves  unduly,  scrupulously  avoided  that  side  of  the  clear- 
ing in  his  strolls. 

The  day — or  rather  the  first  night — ^after  his  hermit  life 
began,  he  was  aware  of  vague  sounds  of  revelry  in  that 
direction.  Emboldened  by  the  departure  of  the  invading 
strangers,  some  Alfuros,  the  woman's  friends  and  rela- 
tions, had  ventured  over  the  ridge  to  attend  something  in 
the  nature  of  a  wedding  feast.  Wang  had  invited  them. 
But  this  was  the  only  occasion  when  any  sound  louder  than 
the  buzzing  of  insects  had  troubled  the  profound  silence 
of  the  clearing.  The  natives  were  never  invited  again. 
Wang  not  only  knew  l)ow  to  live  according  to  conven- 
tional proprieties,  but  had  strong  personal  views  as  to  the 
manner  of  arranging  his  domestic  existence.  After  a  time 
Heyst  perceived  that  Wang  had  annexed  all  the  keys.  Any 
key  left  lying  about  vanished  after  Wang  had  passed  that 


I70  VICTORY 

way.  Subsequently  some  of  them — those  that  did  not  be- 
long to  the  storerooms  and  the  empty  bungalows,  and 
could  not  be  regarded  as  the  common  property  of  this 
community  of  two — viere  returned  to  Heyst,  tied  in  a 
bunch  with  a  piece  of  string.  He  found  them  one  morning 
lying  by  the  side  of  his  plate.  He  had  not  been  inconve- 
nienced by  their  absence,  because  he  never  locked  up  any- 
thing in  the  way  of  drawers  and  boxes.  Heyst  said  noth- 
ing. Wang  also  said  nothing.  Perhaps  he  had  always  been 
a  taciturn  man;  perhaps  he  was  influenced  by  the  genius 
of  the  locality,  which  was  certainly  that  of  silence.  Till 
Heyst  and  ^Morrison  had  landed  in  Black  Diamond  Bay, 
and  named  it,  that  side  of  Samburan  had  hardly  ever 
heard  the  sound  of  human  speech.  It  w^as  easy  to  be  taci- 
turn with  Heyst,  who  had  plunged  himself  into  an  abyss 
of  meditation  over  books,  and  remained  in  it  till  the  shadow 
of  Wang  falling  across  the  page,  and  the  sound  of  a 
rough,  low  voice  uttering  the  Malay  word  ''mukan/' 
would  force  him  to  climb  out  to  a  meal. 

Wang  in  his  native  province  in  China  might  have  been 
an  aggressively,  sensitively  genial  person;  but  in  Sam- 
buran he  had  clothed  himself  in  a  mysterious  stolidity, 
and  did  not  seem  to  resent  not  being  spoken  to  except 
in  single  words,  at  a  rate  which  did  not  average  half  a 
dozen  per  day.  And  he  gave  no  more  than  he  got.  It  is  to 
be  presumed  that  if  he  suffered  constraint,  he  made  up  for 
it  with  the  Alfuro  woman.  He  always  went  back  to  her  at 
the  first  fall  of  dusk,  vanishing  from  the  bungalow  sud- 
denly at  this  hour,  like  a  sort  of  topsy-tur\y,  day -hunting 
Chinese  ghost  with  a  white  jacket  and  a  pigtail.  Presently, 
giving  way  to  a  Chinaman's  ruling  passion,  he  could  be 
obsen-ed  breaking  the  ground  near  his  hut,  between  the 
mighty  stumps  of  felled  trees,  with  a  miner's  pickaxe. 
After  a  time,  he  discovered  a  rusty  but  serviceable  spade 
in  one  of  the  empty  storerooms,  and  it  is  to  be  supposed 
that  he  got  on  famously;  but  nothing  of  it  could  be  seen, 


VICTORY  171 

because  he  went  to  the  trouble  of  pulling  to  pieces  one  of 
the  company's  sheds  in  order  to  get  materials  for  making 
a  high  and  very  close  fence  round  his  patch,  as  if  the 
growing  of  vegetables  were  a  patented  process,  or  an 
awful  and  holy  mystery  entrusted  to  the  keeping  of  his 
race. 

Heyst,  following  from  a  distance  the  progress  of 
Wang's  gardening  and  of  these  precautions — ^there  was 
nothing  else  to  look  at — was  amused  at  the  thought  that 
he,  in  his  own  person,  represented  the  market  for  its  prod- 
uce. The  Chinaman  had  found  several  packets  of  seeds 
in  the  storerooms,  and  had  surrendered  to  an  irresistible 
impulse  to  put  them  into  the  ground.  He  would  make  his 
master  pay  for  the  vegetables  which  he  was  raising  tcr 
satisfy  his  instinct.  And,  looking  silently  at  the  silent  Wang 
going  about  his  work  in  the  bungalow  in  his  unhasty, 
steady  way,  Heyst  envied  the  Chinaman's  obedience  to 
his  instincts,  the  powerful  simplicity  of  purpose  which 
made  his  existence  appear  almost  automatic  in  the  mjs- 
terious  precision  of  its  facts. 


II 

During  his  master's  absence  at  Sourabaya,  Wang  had 
busied  himself  with  the  ground  immediately  in  front  of 
the  principal  bungalow.  Emerging  from  the  fringe  of 
grass  growing  across  the  shore  end  of  the  coal- jetty,  Heyst 
beheld  a  broad,  clear  space,  black  and  level,  with  only  one 
or  two  clumps  of  charred  twigs,  where  the  flame  had 
swept  from  the  front  of  his  house  to  the  nearest  trees  of 
the  forest. 

"You  took  the  risk  of  firing  the  grass?"  Heyst  asked. 

Wang  nodded.  Hanging  on  the  arm  of  the  white  man 
before  whom  he  stood  was  the  girl  called  Alma;  but 
neither  from  the  Chinaman's  eyes  nor  from  his  expres- 
sion could  any  one  have  guessed  that  he  was  in  the  slight- 
est degree  aware  of  the  fact. 

*'He  has  been  tidying  the  place  in  this  labour-sa\ang 
way,"  explained  Heyst,  without  looking  at  the  girl,  whose 
hand  rested  on  his  forearm.  "He's  the  whole  establish- 
ment, you  see.  I  told  you  I  hadn't  even  a  dog  to  keep  me 
company  here." 

Wang  had  marched  off  towards  the  wharf. 

"He's  like  those  waiters  in  that  place,"  she  said.  That 
place  was  Schombergs  hotel. 

''One  Chinaman  looks  xQry  much  like  another,"  Heyst 
remarked.  ''We  shall  find  it  useful  to  have  him  here.  This 
is  the  house." 

They  faced,  at  some  distance,  the  six  shallow  steps  lead- 
ing up  to  the  verandah.  The  girl  had  abandoned  Heyst's 
arm. 

"This  is  the  house,"  he  repeated. 

172 


VICTORY  173 

She  did  not  offer  to  budge  away  from  his  side,  but 
stood  staring  fixedly  at  the  steps,  as  if  they  had  been 
something  unique  and  impracticable.  He  waited  a  little, 
but  she  did  not  move. 

"Don't  you  want  to  go  in  ?"  he  said,  without  turning  his 
head  to  look  at  her.  "The  sun's  too  heavy  to  stand  about 
here."  He  tried  to  overcome  a  sort  of  fear,  a  sort  of  im- 
patient faintness,  and  his  voice  sounded  rough.  "You  had 
better  go  in,"  he  concluded. 

They  both  moved  then,  but  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs 
Heyst  stopped,  while  the  girl  went  on  rapidly,  as  if  noth- 
ing could  stop  her  now.  She  crossed  the  verandah  swiftly, 
and  entered  the  twilight  of  the  big  central  room  opening 
upon  it,  and  then  the  deeper  twilight  of  the  room  beyond. 
She  stood  still  in  the  dusk,  in  which  her  dazzled  eyes  could 
scarcely  make  out  the  forms  of  objects,  and  sighed  a  sigh 
of  relief.  The  impression  of  the  sunlight,  of  sea  and  sky, 
remained  with  her  like  a  memory  of  a  painful  trial  gone 
through — done  with  at  last ! 

Meanwhile  Heyst  had  walked  back  slowly  towards  the 
jetty ;  but  he  did  not  get  so  far  as  that.  The  practical  and 
automatic  Wang  had  got  hold  of  one  of  the  little  trucks 
that  had  been  used  for  running  baskets  of  coal  alongside 
ships.  He  appeared  pushing  it  before  him,  loaded  lightly 
with  Heyst's  bag  and  the  bundle  of  the  girl's  belongings, 
wrapped  in  Mrs.  Schomberg's  shawl.  Heyst  turned  about 
and  walked  by  the  side  of  the  rusty  rails  on  which  the 
truck  ran.  Opposite  the  house  Wang  stopped,  lifted  the 
bag  to  his  shoulder,  balanced  it  carefully,  and  then  took 
the  bundle  in  his  hand. 

"Leave  those  things  on  the  table  in  the  big  room — un- 
derstand ?" 

"Me  savee,"  grunted  Wang,  moving  off. 

Heyst  watched  the  Chinaman  disappear  from  the  veran- 
dah. It  was  not  till  he  had  seen  Wang  come  out  that  he 
himself  entered  the  twilight  of  the  big  room.  By  that  time 


(74  VICTORY 

Wang  was  out  of  sight  at  the  back  of  the  house,  but  by  no 
means  out  of  hearing.  The  Chinaman  could  hear  the  voice 
of  him  who,  when  there  were  many  people  there,  was  gen- 
erally referred  to  as  *' Number  One."  Wang  was  not  able 
to  understand  the  words,  but  the  tone  interested  him. 

"Where  are  you?''  cried  Number  One. 

Then  Wang  heard,  much  more  faint,  a  voice  he  had 
never  heard  before — a  novel  impression  which  he  acknowl- 
edged by  cocking  his  head  slightly  to  one  side. 

"I  am  here — out  of  the  sun." 

The  new  voice  sounded  remote  and  uncertain.  Wang 
heard  nothing  more,  though  he  waited  for  some  time, 
very  still,  the  top  of  his  shaven  poll  exactly  level  with  the 
floor  of  the  back  verandah.  His  face  meanwhile  preserved 
an  inscrutable  immobility.  Suddenly  he  stooped  to  pick  up 
the  lid  of  a  deal  candle-box  which  was  lying  on  the  ground 
by  his  foot.  Breaking  it  up  with  his  fingers,  he  directed  his 
steps  towards  the  cook-shed,  where,  squatting  on  his  heels, 
he  proceeded  to  kindle  a  small  fire  under  a  very  sooty  ket- 
tle, possibly  to  make  tea.  Wang  had  some  knowledge  of 
the  more  superficial  rites  and  ceremonies  of  white  men's 
existence,  otherwise  so  enigmatically  remote  to  his  mind, 
and  containing  unexpected  possibilities  of  good  and  evil, 
which  had  to  be  watched  for  with  prudence  and  care. 


Ill 

That  morning,  as  on  all  the  others  of  the  full  tale  of 
mornings  since  his  return  with  the  girl  to  Samburan, 
Heyst  came  out  on  the  verandah  and  spread  his  elbows  on 
the  railing,  in  an  easy  attitude  of  proprietorship.  The  bulk 
of  the  central  ridge  of  the  island  cut  off  the  bungalow 
from  sunrises,  whether  glorious  or  cloudy,  angry  or 
serene.  The  dwellers  therein  were  debarred  from  reading 
early  the  fortune  of  the  new-born  day.  It  sprang  upon 
them  in  its  fulness  with  a  swift  retreat  of  the  great  shadow 
when  the  sun,  clearing  the  ridge,  looked  down,  hot  and 
dry,  with  a  devouring  glare  like  the  eye  of  an  enemy.  But 
Heyst,  once  the  Number  One  of  this  locality,  while  it  was 
comparatively  teeming  with  mankind,  appreciated  the  pro- 
longation of  early  coolness,  the  subdued,  lingering  half 
light,  the  faint  ghost  of  the  departed  night,  the  fragrance 
of  its  dewy,  dark  soul  captured  for  a  moment  longer  be- 
tween the  great  glow  of  the  sky  and  the  intense  blaze  of 
the  uncovered  sea. 

It  was  naturally  difficult  for  Heyst  to  keep  his  mind 
from  dwelling  on  the  nature  and  consequences  of  this,  his 
latest  departure  from  the  part  of  an  unconcerned  spec- 
tator. Yet  he  had  retained  enough  of  his  wrecked  philoso- 
phy to  prevent  him  from  asking  himself  consciously  how 
it  would  end.  But  at  the  same  time  he  could  not  help  be- 
ing temperamentally,  from  long  habit  and  from  set  pur- 
pose, a  spectator  still,  perhaps  a  little  less  na'ive  but  (as  he 
discovered  with  some  surprise)  not  much  more  far-sighted 
than  the  common  run  of  men.  Like  the  rest  of  us  who  act, 
all  he  could  say  to  himself,  with  a  somewhat  affected  grim- 
ness,  was : 

175 


176  VICTORY 

^'We  shall  see !" 

This  mood  of  grim  doubt  intruded  on  him  only  when 
he  was  alone.  There  were  not  many  such  moments  in  his 
day  now;  and  he  did  not  like  them  when  they  came.  On 
this  morning  he  had  no  time  to  grow  uneasy.  Alma  came 
out  to  join  him  long  before  the  sun,  rising  above  the  Sam- 
buran  ridge,  swept  the  cool  shadow  of  the  early  mornmg 
and  the  remnant  of  the  night's  coolness  clear  off  the  roof 
under  which  they  had  dwelt  for  more  than  three  months 
already.  She  came  out  as  on  other  mornings.  He  had 
heard  her  light  footsteps  in  the  big  room — the  room  where 
he  had  unpacked  the  cases  from  London;  the  room  now 
lined  with  the  backs  of  books  halfway  up  on  its  three 
sides.  Above  the  cases  the  fine  matting  met  the  ceiling  of 
tightly  stretched  white  calico.  In  the  dusk  and  coolness 
nothing  gleamed  except  the  gilt  frame  of  the  portrait  of 
Heyst's  father,  signed  by  a  famous  painter,  lonely  in  the 
middle  of  a  wall. 

Heyst  did  not  turn  round. 

"Do  you  know  what  I  was  thinking  of  ?"  he  asked. 

"No,''  she  said.  Her  tone  betrayed  always  a  shade  of 
anxiety,  as  though  she  were  never  certain  how  a  conver- 
sation with  him  would  end.  She  leaned  on  the  guard-rail 
by  his  side. 

"No,"  she  repeated.  "What  was  it?"  She  waited.  Then, 
rather  with  reluctance  than  shyness,  she  asked : 

"Were  you  thinking  of  me?" 

"I  was  wondering  when  you  would  come  out,"  said 
Heyst  still  without  looking  at  the  girl — ^to  whom,  after 
several  experimental  essays  in  combining  detached  letters 
and  loose  syllables,  he  had  given  the  name  of  Lena. 

She  remarked  after  a  pause : 

"I  was  not  very  far  from  you." 

"Apparently  you  were  not  near  enough  for  me.** 

"You  could  have  called  if  you  wanted  me,"  she  said 
"And  I  wasn't  so  long  doing  my  hair." 


VICTORY  177 

"Apparently  it  was  too  long  for  me." 

"Well,  you  were  thinking  of  me,  anyhow.  I  am  glad 
of  it.  Do  you  know,  it  seems  to  me,  somehow,  that  if  you 
were  to  stop  thinking  of  me  I  shouldn't  be  in  the  world  at 
all!" 

He  turned  round  and  looked  at  her.  She  often  said 
things  which  surprised  him.  A  vague  smile  faded  away  on 
her  lips  before  his  scrutiny. 

"What  is  it?"  he  asked.  "Is  it  a  reproach?" 

"A  reproach!  Why,  how  could  it  be?"  she  defended 
herself. 

"Well,  what  did  it  mean?"  he  insisted. 

"What  I  said — ^just  what  I  said.  Why  aren't  you  fair?" 

"Ah,  this  at  least  is  a  reproach!" 

She  coloured  to  the  roots  of  her  hair. 

"It  looks  as  if  you  were  trying  to  make  out  that  I  am 
disagreeable,"  she  murmured.  "Am  I?  You  will  make  me 
afraid  to  open  my  mouth  presently.  I  shall  end  by  believ- 
ing I  am  no  good." 

Her  head  drooped  a  little.  He  looked  at  her  smooth, 
low  brow,  the  faintly  coloured  cheeks,  and  the  red  lips 
parted  slightly,  with  the  gleam  of  her  teeth  within. 

"And  then  I  won't  be  any  good,"  she  added  with  con- 
viction. "That  I  won't!  I  can  only  be  what  you  think  I 
am." 

He  made  a  slight  movement.  She  put  her  hand  on  his 
arm,  without  raising  her  head,  and  went  on,  her  voice 
animated  in  the  stillness  of  her  body : 

"It  is  so.  It  couldn't  be  any  other  way  with  a  girl  like 
me  and  a  man  like  you.  Here  we  are,  we  two  alone,  and  I 
can't  even,  tell  where  we  are." 

"A  very  well-known  spot  of  the  globe,"  Heyst  uttered 
gently.  "There  must  have  been  at  least  fifty  thousand  cir- 
culars issued  at  the  time — a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand, 
more  likely.  My  friend  was  looking  after  that,  and  his 
ideas  were  large  and  his  belief  very  strong.  Of  us  two  it 


tyS  VICTORY 

was  he  who  had  the  faith.  A  hundred  and  fifty  thousand,   ? 
certainly." 

"What  is  it  you  mean?"  she  asked  in  a  low  tone. 

"What  should  I  find  fault  with  you  for?"  Heyst  went 
on.  "For  being  amiable,  good,  gracious — and  pretty?" 

A  silence  fell.  Then  she  said : 

"It's  all  right  that  you  should  think  that  of  me.  There's 
no  one  here  to  think  anything  of  us,  good  or  bad." 

The  rare  timbre  of  her  voice  gave  a  special  value  to 
what  she  uttered.  The  indefinable  emotion  which  certain 
intonations  gave  him,  he  was  aware,  was  more  physical 
than  moral.  Every  time  she  spoke  to  him  she  seemed  to 
abandon  to  him  something  of  herself — something  exces- 
sively subtle  and  inexpressible,  to  which  he  was  infinitely 
sensible,  which  he  would  have  missed  horribly  if  she  were 
to  go  away.  While  he  was  looking  into  her  eyes  she  raised 
her  bare  forearm,  out  of  the  short  sleeve,  and  held  it  in 
the  air  till  he  noticed  it  and  hastened  to  pose  his  great 
bronze  moustaches  on  the  whiteness  of  the  skin.  Then  they 
went  in. 

Wang  immediately  appeared  in  front,  and,  squatting  on 
his  heels,  began  to  potter  mysteriously  about  some  plants 
at  the  foot  of  the  verandah.  When  Heyst  and  the  girl 
came  out  again,  the  Chinaman  had  gone  in  his  peculiar 
manner,  which  suggested  vanishing  out  of  existence  rather 
than  out  of  sight,  a  process  of  evaporation  rather  than  of 
movement.  They  descended  the  steps,  looking  at  each 
other,  and  started  oflf  smartly  across  the  cleared  ground; 
but  they  were  not  ten  yards  away  when,  without  percepti- 
ble stir  or  sound,  Wang  materialized  inside  the  empty 
room.  The  Chinaman  stood  still  with  roaming  eyes,  exam- 
ining the  walls  as  if  for  signs,  for  inscriptions ;  exploring 
the  floor  as  if  for  pitfalls,  for  dropped  coins.  Then  he 
cocked  his  head  slightly  at  the  profile  of  Heyst's  father, 
pen  in  hand  above  a  white  sheet  of  paper  on  a  crimson 


VICTORY  179 

tablecloth ;  and,  moving  forward  noiselessly,  began  to  clear 
away  the  breakfast  things. 

Though  he  proceeded  without  haste,  the  unerring  pre- 
cision of  his  movements,  the  absolute  soundlessness  of  the 
operation,  gave  it  something  of  the  quality  of  a  conjuring 
trick.  And,  the  trick  having  been  performed,  Wang  van- 
ished from  the  scene,  to  materialize  presently  in  front  of 
the  house.  He  materialized  walking  away  from  it,  with  no 
visible  or  guessable  intention;  but  at  the  end  of  some  ten 
paces  he  stopped,  made  a  half  turn,  and  put  his  hand  up  to 
shade  his  eyes.  The  sun.  had  topped  the  grey  ridge  of  Sam- 
buran.  The  great  morning  shadow  was  gone;  and  far 
away  in  the  devouring  sunshine  Wang  was  in  time  to  see 
Number  One  and  the  woman,  two  remote  white  specks 
against  the  sombre  line  of  the  forest.  In  a  moment  they 
vanished.  With  the  smallest  display  of  action,  Wang  also 
vanished  from  the  sunlight  of  the  clearing. 

Hey  St  and  Lena  entered  the  shade  of  the  forest  path 
which  crossed  the  island,  and  which,  near  its  highest  point, 
had  been  blocked  by  felled  trees.  But  their  intention  was 
not  to  go  so  far.  After  keeping  to  the  path  for  some  dis- 
tance, they  left  it  at  a  point  where  the  forest  was  bare  of 
undergrowth,  and  the  trees,  festooned  with  creepers,  stood 
clear  of  one  another  in  the  gloom  of  their  own  making. 
Here  and  there  great  splashes  of  light  lay  on  the  ground. 
They  moved,  silent  in  the  great  stillness,  breathing  the 
calmness,  the  infinite  isolation,  the  repose  of  a  slumber 
without  dreams.  They  emerged  at  the  upper  limit  of  vege- 
tation, among  some  rocks ;  and  in  a  depression  of  the  sharp 
slope,  like  a  small  platform,  they  turned  about  and  looked 
from  on  high  over  the  sea,  lonely,  its  colour  effaced  by 
sunshine,  its  horizon  a  heat  mist,  a  mere  unsubstantial 
shimmer  in  the  pale  and  blinding  infinity  overhung  by  the 
darker  blaze  of  the  sky. 

"It  makes  my  head  swim,"  the  girl  murmured,  shutting 
her  eyes  and  putting  her  hand  on  his  shoulder. 


i8o  VICTORY 

Hevst,  gazing  fixedly  to  the  southward,  exclaimed : 

^'Sailho!" 

A  moment  of  silence  ensued. 

"It  must  be  very  far  away,"  he  went  on.  "I  don't  think 
you  could  see  it.  Some  native  craft  making  for  the  AIoluc- 
cas,  probably.  Come,  we  mustn't  stay  here." 

With  his  arm  round  her  waist,  he  led  her  down  a  little 
distance,  and  they  settled  themselves  in  the  shade ;  she, 
seated  on  the  ground,  he  a  little  lower,  reclining  at  her 
feet. 

''You  don't  like  to  look  at  the  sea  from  up  there?"  he 
said  after  a  time. 

She  shook  her  head.  That  empty  space  was  to  her  the 
abomination  of  desolation.  But  she  only  said  again : 

*'It  makes  my  head  swim." 

"Too  big?"  he  inquired. 

"Too  lonely.  It  makes  my  heart  sink,  too,"  she  added  in 
a  low  voice,  as  if  confessing  a  secret. 

"I  am  afraid,"  said  Heyst,  "that  you  would  be  justified 
in  reproaching  me  for  these  sensations.  But  what  would 
you  have?" 

His  tone  was  playful,  but  his  eyes,  directed  at  her  face, 
were  serious.  She  protested. 

"I  am  not  feeling  lonely  with  you — not  a  bit.  It  is  only 
when  we  come  up  to  that  place,  and  I  look  at  all  that  water 
and  all  that  light " 

"We  will  never  come  here  again,  then,"  he  interrupted 
her. 

She  remained  silent  for  a  while,  returning  his  gaze  till 
he  removed  it. 

"It  seems  as  if  everything  that  there  is  had  gone 
under,"  she  said. 

"Reminds  you  of  the  story  of  the  deluge,"  muttered  the 
man,  stretched  at  her  feet  and  looking  at  them.  "Are  you 
frightened  at  it  ?" 


VICTORY  i8i 

"I  should  be  rather  frightened  to  be  left  behind  alone. 
When  I  say  I,  of  course  I  mean  wef' 

''Do  you?"  .  .  .  Heyst  remained  silent  for  a  while. 
"The  vision  of  a  world  destroyed,"  he  mused  aloud. 
** Would  you  be  sorry  for  it?" 

'*I  should  be  sorry  for  the  happy  people  in  it,"  she  said 
simply. 

His  gaze  travelled  up  her  figure  and  reached  her  face, 
where  he  seemed  to  detect  the  veiled  glow  of  intelligence, 
as  one  gets  a  glimpse  of  the  sun  through  the  clouds. 

''I  should  have  thought  it's  they  specially  who  ought  to 
have  been  congratulated.  Don't  you  ?" 

"Oh,  yes — I  understand  what  you  mean ;  but  there  were 
forty  days  before  it  was  all  over." 

"You  seem  to  be  in  possession  of  all  the  details." 

Heyst  spoke  just  to  say  something  rather  than  to  gaze 
at  her  in  silence.  She  was  not  looking  at  him. 

"Sunday  school,"  she  murmured.  "I  went  regularly 
from  the  time  I  was  eight  till  I  was  thirteen.  We  lodged 
in  the  north  of  London,  off  Kingsland  Road.  It  wasn't 
a  bad  time.  Father  was  earning  good  money  then.  The 
woman  of  the  house  used  to  pack  me  off  in  the  afternoon 
with  her  own  girls.  She  was  a  good  woman.  Her  husband 
was  in  the  post-office.  Sorter  or  something.  Such  a  quiet 
man.  He  used  to  go  off  after  supper  for  night  duty,  some- 
times. Then  one  day  they  had  a  row,  and  broke  up  the 
home.  I  remember  I  cried  when  we  had  to  pack  up  all  of 
a  sudden  and  go  into  other  lodgings.  I  never  knew  what  it 
was,  though " 

"The  deluge,"  muttered  Heyst  absently. 

He  felt  intensely  aware  of  her  personality,  as  if  this 
were  the  first  moment  of  leisure  he  had  found  to  look  at 
her  since  they  had  come  together.  The  peculiar  timbre  of 
her  voice,  with  its  modulations  of  audacity  and  sadness, 
would  have  given  interest  to  the  most  inane  chatter.  But 
she  was  no  chatterer.  She  was  rather  silent,  with  a  capacity 


i82  VICTORY 

for  immobility,  an  upright  stillness,  as  when  resting  on  j 
the  concert  platform  between  the  musical  numbers,  her  ■ 
feet  crossed,  her  hands  reposing  on  her  lap.  But  in  the  in- 
timacy of  their  life  her  grey,  unabashed  gaze  forced  upon 
him  the  sensation  of  something  inexplicable  reposing 
within  her;  stupidity  or  inspiration,  weakness  or  force — 
or  simply  an  abysmal  emptiness,  reserving  itself  even  in 
the  moments  of  complete  surrender.  , 

During  a  long  pause  she  did  not  look  at  him.  Then  sud-  \ 
denly,  as  if  the  word  "deluge"  had  stuck  in  her  mind,  she 
asked,  looking  up  at  the  cloudless  sky : 

''Does  it  ever  rain  here?" 

"There  is  a  season  when  it  rains  almost  every  day,"  said 
Heyst,  surprised.  "There  are  also  thunderstorms.  We  had 
once  a  mud-shower." 

"Mud-shower?" 

"Our  neighbour  there  was  shooting  up  ashes.  He  some- 
times clears  his  red-hot  gullet  like  that;  and  a  thunder-  , 
storm  came  along  at  the  same  time.  It  was  very  messy;  ' 
but  our  neighbour  is  generally  wtW  behaved — just  smokes 
quietly,  as  he  did  that  day  when  I  first  showed  you  the 
smudge  in  the  sk}-  from  the  schooner's  deck.  He's  a  good- 
natured,  lazy  fellow  of  a  volcano." 

"I  saw  a  mountain  smoking  like  that  before,"  she  said,  j 
staring  at  the  slender  stem  of  a  tree-fern  some  dozen  feet 
in  front  of  her.  'Tt  wasn't  ver\'  long  after  we  left  England 
— some  few  days,  though.  I  was  so  ill  at  first  that  I  lost 
count  of  days.  A  smoking  mountain — I  can't  think  how 
they  called  it." 

"Vesuvius,  perhaps,"  suggested  Heyst. 

"That's  the  name." 

"I  saw  it,  too,  years,  ages  ago,"  said  Heyst. 

"On  your  way  here  ?" 

"No,  long  before  I  ever  thought  of  coming  into  this 
part  of  the  world.  I  was  yet  a  boy." 

She  turned  and  looked  at  him  attentively,  as  if  seeking 


VICTORY  183 

to  discover  some  trace  of  that  boyhood  in  the  mature  face 
of  the  man  with  the  hair  thin  at  the  top  and  the  long,  thick 
moustaches.  Heyst  stood  the  frank  examination  with  a 
playful  smile,  hiding  the  profound  effect  these  veiled  grey 
eyes  produced — ^whether  on  his  heart  or  on  his  nerves, 
whether  sensuous  or  spiritual,  tender  or  irritating,  he  was 
unable  to  say. 

*'Well,  princess  of  Samburan,"  he  said  at  last,  "have  I 
found  favour  in  your  sight  ?" 

She  seemed  to  wake  up,  and  shook  her  head. 

"I  was  thinking,"  she  murmured  very  low. 

"Thought,  action — so  many  snares!  If  you  begin  to 
think  you  will  be  unhappy." 

"I  wasn't  thinking  of  myself,"  she  declared  with  a  sim- 
plicity which  took  Heyst  aback  somewhat. 

"On  the  lips  of  a  moralist  this  would  sound  like  a  re- 
buke," he  said,  half  seriously;  "but  I  won't  suspect  you 
of  being  one.  Moralists  and  I  haven't  been  friends  for 
many  years." 

She  had  listened  with  an  air  of  attention. 

"I  understood  you  had  no  friends,"  she  said.  "I  am 
pleased  that  there's  nobody  to  find  fault  with  you  for  what 
you  have  done.  I  like  to  think  that  I  am  in  no  one's  way." 

Heyst  would  have  said  something,  but  she  did  not  give 
him  time.  Unconscious  of  the  movement  he  made  she  went 
on: 

"What  I  was  thinking  to  myself  was,  why  are  you 
here?" 

Heyst  let  himself  sink  on  his  elbow  again. 

"If  by  *you'  you  mean  'we' — well,  you  know  why  we  are 
here." 

She  bent  her  gaze  down  at  him. 

"No,  it  isn't  that.  I  meant  before — all  that  time  before 
you  came  across  me  and  guessed  at  once  that  I  was  in 
trouble,  with  no  one  to  turn  to.  And  you  know  it  was  des- 
perate trouble  too." 


i84  VICTORY  . 

Her  voice  fell  on  the  last  words,  as  if  she  would  end 
there;  but  there  was  something  so  expectant  in  Heyst's 
attitude  as  he  sat  at  her  feet,  looking  up  at  her  steadily, 
^hat  she  continued,  after  drawing  a  short,  quick  breath : 

"It  was,  really.  I  told  you  I  had  been  worried  before  by 
bad  fellows.  It  made  me  unhappy,  disturbed — angry,  too. 
But  oh,  how  I  hated,  hated,  hated  that  man !"  j 

''That  man"  was  the  florid  Schomberg  with  the  mili- 
tary bearing,  benefactor  of  white  men  ("decent  food  to 
eat  in  decent  company") — mature  victim  of  belated  pas- 
sion. The  girl  shuddered.  The  characteristic  harmonious- 
ness  of  her  face  became,  as  it  were,  decomposed  for  an  in- 
stant. Heyst  was  startled. 

"Why  think  of  it  now  ?"  he  cried. 

"It's  because  I  was  cornered  that  time.  It  wasn't  as  be- 
fore. It  was  worse,  ever  so  much.  I  wished  I  could  die  of 
my  fright ; — and  yet  it's  only  now  that  I  begin  to  under-  J 
stand  what  a  horror  it  might  have  been.  Yes,  only  now,' 
since  we " 

Heyst  stirred  a  little. 

"Came  here,"  he  finished. 

Her  tenseness  relaxed,  her  flushed  face  went  gradually 
back  to  its  normal  tint. 

"Yes,"  she  said  indifferently,  but  at  the  same  time  she 
gave  him  a  stealthy  glance  of  passionate  appreciation ;  and 
then  her  face  took  on  a  melancholy  cast,  her  whole  figure 
drooped  imperceptibly.  "But  you  were  coming  back  here 
anyhow?"  she  asked. 

"Yes.  I  was  only  waiting  for  Davidson.  Yes,  I  was  com- 
ing back  here,  to  these  ruins — ^to  Wang,  who  perhaps  did 
not  expect  to  see  me  again.  It's  impossible  to  guess  at  the 
way  that  Chinaman  draws  his  conclusions,  and  how  he 
looks  upon  one." 

"Don't  talk  about  him.  He  makes  me  feel  uncomforta- 
ble. Talk  about  yourself." 

"About  myself  ?  I  see  you  are  still  busy  with  the  mys- 


VICTORY  185 

tery  of  my  existence  here;  but  it  isn't  at  all  mysterious. 
Primarily  the  man  with  the  quill  pen  in  his  hand  in  that 
picture  you  so  often  look  at  is  responsible  for  my  existence. 
He  is  also  responsible  for  what  my  existence  is,  or  rather 
has  been.  He  was  a  great  man  in  his  way.  I  don't  know 
much  of  his  history.  I  suppose  he  began  like  other  people ; 
took  fine  words  for  good,  ringing  coin  and  noble  ideals  for 
valuable  banknotes.  He  was  a  great  master  of  both,  him- 
self, by  the  way.  Later  he  discovered — ^how  am  I  to  ex- 
plain it  to  you  ?  Suppose  the  world  were  a  factory  and  all 
mankind  workmen  in  it.  Well,  he  discovered  that  the 
wages  were  not  good  enough.  That  they  were  paid  in  coun- 
terfeit money." 

"I  see !"  the  girl  said  slowly. 

^^Doyou?" 

Heyst,  who  had  been  speaking  as  if  to  himself,  looked 
up  curiously. 

"It  wasn't  a  new  discovery,  but  he  brought  his  capacity 
for  scorn  to  bear  on  it.  It  was  immense.  It  ought  to  have 
withered  this  globe.  I  don't  know  how  many  minds  he 
convinced.  But  my  mind  was  very  young  then,  and  youth 
I  suppose  can  be  easily  seduced — even  by  a  negation.  He 
was  very  ruthless,  and  yet  he  was  not  without  pity.  He 
dominated  me  without  difficulty.  A  heartless  man  could 
not  have  done  so.  Even  to  fools  he  was  not  utterly  merci- 
less. He  could  be  indignant,  but  he  was  too  great  for 
flouts  and  jeers.  What  he  said  was  not  meant  for  the 
crowd ;  it  could  not  be ;  and  I  was  flattered  to  find  myself 
among  the  elect.  They  read  his  books,  but  I  have  heard  his 
living  word.  It  was  irresistible.  It  was  as  if  that  mind  were 
taking  me  into  its  confidence,  giving  me  a  special  insight 
into  its  mastery  of  despair.  Mistake,  no  doubt.  There  is 
something  of  my  father  in  every  man  who  lives  long 
enough.  But  they  don't  say  anything.  They  can't.  They 
wouldn't  know  how,  or  perhaps,  they  wouldn't  speak  if 
they  could.  Man  on  this  earth  is  an  unforeseen  accident 


i86  VICTORY 

which  does  not  stand  close  investigation.  However,  that 
particular  man  died  as  quietly  as  a  child  goes  to  sleep.  But, 
after  listening  to  him,  I  could  not  take  my  soul  down  into 
the  street  to  fight  there.  I  started  off  to  wander  about,  an 
independent  spectator — if  that  is  possible." 

For  a  long  time  the  girl's  grey  eyes  had  been  watching 
his  face.  She  discovered  that,  addressing  her,  he  was  really 
talking  to  himself.  Heyst  looked  up,  caught  sight  of  her 
as  it  were,  and  caught  himself  up,  with  a  low  laugh  and  a 
change  of  tone. 

"All  this  does  not  tell  you  why  I  ever  came  here.  Why, 
indeed?  It's  like  prying  into  inscrutable  mysteries  which 
are  not  worth  scrutinising.  A  man  drifts.  The  most  suc- 
cessful men  have  drifted  into  their  successes.  I  don't  want 
to  tell  you  that  this  is  a  success.  You  wouldn't  believe  me 
if  I  did.  It  isn't ;  neither  is  it  the  ruinous  failure  it  looks. 
It  proves  nothing,  unless  perhaps  some  hidden  weakness 
in  my  character — and  even  that  is  not  certain." 

He  looked  fixedly  at  her,  and  with  such  grave  eyes  that 
she  felt  obliged  to  smile  faintly  at  him,  since  she  did  not 
understand  what  he  meant.  Her  smile  was  reflected,  still 
fainter,  on  his  lips. 

"This  does  not  advance  you  much  in  your  inquiry,"  he 
went  on.  "And  in  truth  your  question  is  unanswerable; 
but  facts  have  a  certain  positive  value,  and  I  will  tell  you 
a  fact.  One  day  I  met  a  cornered  man.  I  use  the  word  be- 
cause it  expresses  the  man's  situation  exactly,  and  because 
you  just  used  it  yourself.  You  know  what  that  means?" 

"What  do  you  say?"  she  whispered,  astounded.  "A 
man!" 

Heyst  laughed  at  her  wondering  eyes. 

"No !  No !  I  mean  in  his  own  way." 

"I  knew  very  well  it  couldn't  be  anything  like  that,"  she 
observed  under  her  breath. 

"I  won't  bother  you  with  the  story.  It  was  a  custom- 
house affair,  strange  as  it  may  sound  to  you.  He  would 


VICTORY  187 

have  preferred  to  be  killed  outright — ^that  is,  to  have  his 
soul  despatched  to  another  world,  rather  than  to  be  robbed 
of  his  substance,  his  very  insignificant  substance,  in  this. 
I  saw  that  he  believed  in  another  world  because,  being 
cornered,  as  I  have  told  you,  he  went  down  on  his  knees 
and  prayed.  What  do  you  think  of  that  ?" 

Heyst  paused.  She  looked  at  him  earnestly. 

"You  didn't  make  fun  of  him  for  that?"  she  said. 

Heyst  made  a  brusque  movement  of  protest. 

"My  dear  girl,  I  am  not  a  ruffian,"  he  cried.  Then,  re- 
turning to  his  usual  tone :  "I  didn't  even  have  to  conceal 
a  smile.  Somehow  it  didn't  look  a  smiling  matter.  No,  it 
was  not  funny;  it  was  rather  pathetic;  he  was  so  repre- 
sentative of  all  the  past  victims  of  the  Great  Joke.  But  it 
is  by  folly  alone  that  the  world  moves,  and  so  it  is  a  re- 
spectable thing  upon  the  whole.  And  besides,  he  was  what 
one  would  call  a  good  man.  I  don't  mean  especially  be- 
cause he  had  offered  up  a  prayer.  No!  He  was  really  a 
decent  fellow,  he  was  quite  unfitted  for  this  world,  he  was 
a  failure,  a  good  man  cornered — a  sight  for  the  gods ;  for 
no  decent  mortal  cares  to  look  at  that  sort."  A  thought 
seemed  to  occur  to  him.  He  turned  his  face  to  the  girl. 
"And  you,  who  have  been  cornered  too — did  you  think  of 
offering  a  prayer  ?" 

Neither  her  eyes  nor  a  single  one  of  her  features  moved 
the  least  bit.  She  only  let  fall  the  words : 

"I  am  not  what  they  call  a  good  girl." 

"That  sounds  evasive,"  said  Heyst  after  a  short  silence. 
"Well,  the  good  fellow  did  pray  and  after  he  had  con- 
fessed to  it  I  was  struck  by  the  comicality  of  the  situation. 
No,  don't  misunderstand  me — I  am  not  alluding  to  his  act, 
of  course.  And  even  the  idea  of  Eternity,  Infinity,  Omni- 
potence, being  called  upon  to  defeat  the  conspiracy  of 
two  miserable  Portuguese  half-castes  did  not  move  my 
mirth.  From  the  point  of  view  of  the  supplicant,  the  dan- 
ger to  be  conjured  was  something  like  the  end  of  the 


i88  VICTORY 

world,  or  worse.  No !  What  captivated  my  fancy  was  that 
I,  Axel  Heyst,  the  most  detached  of  creatures  in  this 
earthly  captivity,  the  veriest  tramp  on  this  earth,  an  indif- 
ferent stroller  going  through  the  world's  bustle — that  I 
should  have  been  there  to  step  into  the  situation  of  an 
agent  of  Providence.  I,  a  man  of  universal  scorn  and  un- 
belief. .  .  r 

''You  are  putting  it  on,"  she  interrupted  in  her  seduc- 
tive voice,  with  a  coaxing  intonation. 

"No.  I  am  like  that,  born  or  fashioned,  or  both.  I  am 
not  for  nothing  the  son  of  my  father,  of  that  man  in  the 
painting.  I  am  he,  all  but  the  genius.  And  there  is  even 
less  in  me  than  I  make  out,  because  the  very  scorn  is  fall- 
ing away  from  me  year  after  year.  I  have  never  been  so 
amused  as  by  that  episode  in  which  I  was  suddenly  called 
to  act  such  an  incredible  part.  For  a  moment  I  enjoyed  it 
greatly.  I  got  him  out  of  his  corner,  you  know." 

"You  saved  a  man  for  fun — is  that  what  you  mean? 
Just  for  fun?" 

"Why  this  tone  of  suspicion?"  remonstrated  Heyst.  "I 
suppose  the  sight  of  this  particular  distress  was  disagree- 
able to  me.  What  you  call  fun  came  afterward,  when  it 
dawned  on  me  that  I  was  for  him  a  walking,  breathing, 
incarnate  proof  of  the  efficacy  of  prayer.  I  was  a  little 
fascinated  by  it — and  then,  could  I  have  argued  with  him  ? 
You  don't  argue  against  such  evidence,  and  besides  it 
would  have  looked  as  if  I  had  wanted  to  claim  all  the 
merit.  Already  his  gratitude  was  simply  frightful.  Funny 
position,  wasn't  it  ?  The  boredom  came  later,  when  we  lived 
together  on  board  his  ship.  I  had,  in  a  moment  of  inad- 
vertence, created  for  myself  a  tie.  How  to  define  it  pre- 
cisely I  don't  know.  One  gets  attached  in  a  way  to  people 
one  has  done  something  for.  But  is  that  friendship?  I  am 
not  sure  what  it  was.  I  only  know  that  he  who  forms  a  tie 
is  lost.  The  germ  of  corruption  has  entered  into  his  soul." 

Heyst's  tone  was  light,  with  the  flavour  of  playfulness 


VICTORY  189 

which  seasoned  all  his  speeches  and  seemed  to  be  of  the 
very  essence  of  his  thoughts.  The  girl  he  had  come  across, 
of  whom  he  had  possessed  himself,  to  whose  presence  he 
was  not  yet  accustomed,  with  whom  he  did  not  yet  know 
how  to  live ;  that  human  being  so  near  and  still  so  strange, 
gave  him  a  greater  sense  of  his  own  reality  than  he  had 
ever  known  in  all  his  life. 


IV 


With  her  knees  drawn  up,  Lena  rested  her  elbows  on 
them  and  held  her  head  in  both  her  hands. 

^*Are  you  tired  of  sitting  here?"  Heyst  asked. 

An  almost  imperceptible  negative  movement  of  the  head 
was  all  the  answer  she  made. 

"Why  are  you  looking  so  serious  ?"  he  pursued,  and  im- 
mediately thought  that  habitual  seriousness,  in  the  long 
run,  was  much  more  bearable  than  constant  gaiety.  "How- 
ever, this  expression  suits  you  exceedingly,"  he  added, 
not  diplomatically,  but  because,  by  the  tendency  of  his 
taste,  it  was  a  true  statement.  ''And  as  long  as  I  can  be 
certain  that  it  is  not  boredom  which  gives  you  this  severe 
air,  I  am  willing  to  sit  here  and  look  at  you  till  you  are 
ready  to  go." 

And  this  was  true.  He  was  still  under  the  fresh  sorti- 
lege of  their  common  life,  the  surprise  of  novelty,  the 
flattered  vanity  of  his  possession  of  this  woman;  for  a 
man  must  feel  that,  unless  he  has  ceased  to  be  mascuHne. 
Her  eyes  moved  in  his  direction,  rested  on  him,  then  re- 
turned to  their  stare  into  the  deeper  gloom  at  the  foot  of 
the  straight  tree-trunks,  whose  spreading  crowns  were 
slowly  withdrawing  their  shade.  The  warm  air  stirred 
slightly  about  her  motionless  head.  She  would  not  look  at 
him,  from  some  obscure  fear  of  betraying  herself.  She  felt 
in  her  innermost  depths  an  irresistible  desire  to  give  her- 
self up  to  him  more  completely,  by  some  act  of  absolute 
sacrifice.  This  was  something  of  which  he  did  not  seem  to 
have  an  idea.  He  was  a  strange  being  without  needs.  She 
felt  his  eyes  fixed  upon  her ;  and  as  he  kept  silent,  she  said 

190 


VICTORY 


191 


uneasily — for  she  didn't  know  what  his  silences  might 
mean: 

"And  so  you  lived  with  that  friend — ^that  good  man?" 

"Excellent  fellow/'  Heyst  responded,  with  a  readiness 
that  she  did  not  expect.  "But  it  was  a  weakness  on  my 
part.  I  really  didn't  want  to,  only  he  wouldn't  let  me  off, 
and  I  couldn't  explain.  He  was  the  sort  of  man  to  whom 
you  can't  explain  anything.  He  was  extremely  sensitive, 
and  it  would  have  been  a  tigerish  thing  to  do  to  mangle  his 
delicate  feelings  by  the  sort  of  plain  speaking  that  would 
have  been  necessary.  His  mind  was  like  a  white-walled, 
pure  chamber,  furnished  with,  say,  six  straw-bottomed 
chairs,  and  he  was  always  placing  and  displacing  them  in 
various  combinations.  But  they  were  always  the  same 
chairs.  He  was  extremely  easy  to  live  with;  but  then  he 
got  hold  of  this  coal  idea — or,  rather,  the  idea  got  hold  of 
him.  It  entered  into  that  scantily  furnished  chamber  of 
which  I  have  just  spoken,  and  sat  on  all  the  chairs.  There 
was  no  dislodging  it,  you  know !  It  was  going  to  make  his 
fortune,  my  fortune,  everybody's  fortune.  In  past  years, 
in  moments  of  doubt  that  will  come  to  a  man  determined 
to  remain  free  from  absurdities  of  existence,  I  often  asked 
myself,  with  a  momentary  dread,  in  what  way  would  life 
try  to  get  hold  of  me?  And  this  was  the  way!  He  got  it 
into  his  head  that  he  could  do  nothing  without  me.  And 
was  I  now,  he  asked  me,  to  spurn  and  ruin  him?  Well, 
one  morning — I  wonder  if  he  had  gone  down  on  his  knees 
to  pray  that  night! — one  morning  I  gave  in." 

Heyst  tugged  violently  at  a  tuft  of  dried  grass,  and  cast 
it  away  from  him  with  a  nervous  gesture. 

"I  gave  in,"  he  repeated. 

Looking  towards  him  with  a  movement  of  her  eyes  only, 
the  girl  noticed  the  strong  feeling  on  his  face  with  that 
intense  interest  which  his  person  awakened  in  her  mind 
and  in  her  heart.  But  it  soon  passed  away,  leaving  only  a 
moody  expression. 


192  VICTORY 

''It's  difficult  to  resist  where  nothing  matters,"  he  ob- 
served. ''And  perhaps  there  is  a  grain  of  freakishness  in 
my  nature.  It  amused  me  to  go  about  uttering  silly,  com- 
monplace phrases.  I  was  never  so  well  thought  of  in  the 
islands  till  I  began  to  jabber  commercial  gibberish  like  the 
veriest  idiot.  Upon  my  word,  I  believe  that  I  was  actually 
respected  for  a  time.  I  was  as  grave  as  an  owl  over  it ;  I 
had  to  be  loyal  to  the  man.  I  have  been  from  first  to  last, 
completely,  utterly  loyal  to  the  best  of  my  ability.  I  thought 
he  understood  something  about  coal.  And  if  I  had  been 
aware  that  he  knew  nothing  of  it,  as  in  fact  he  didn't,  well 
— I  don't  know  what  I  could  have  done  to  stop  him.  In 
one  way  or  another  I  should  have  had  to  be  loyal.  Truth, 
work,  ambition,  love  itself,  may  be  only  counters  in  the 
lamentable  or  despicable  game  of  life,  but  when  one  takes 
a  hand  one  must  play  the  game.  No,  the  shade  of  Morri- 
son needn't  haunt  me.  What's  the  matter?  I  say,  Lena, 
w^hy  are  you  staring  like  that?  Do  you  feel  ill?" 

Heyst  made  as  if  to  get  on  his  feet.  The  girl  extended 
her  arm  to  arrest  him,  and  he  remained  staring  in  a  sit- 
ting posture,  propped  on  one  arm,  observing  her  indefin- 
able expression  of  anxiety,  as  if  she  were  unable  to  draw 
breath. 

"What  has  come  to  you?"  he  insisted,  feeling  strangely 
unwilling  to  move,  to  touch  her. 

"Nothing."  She  swallowed  painfully.  "Of  course  it 
can't  be.  W^hat  name  did  you  say?  I  didn't  hear  it  prop- 
erly." 

"Name?"  repeated  Heyst  dazedly.  "I  only  mentioned 
Morrison.  It's  the  name  of  that  man  of  whom  I've  been 
speaking.  What  of  it  ?" 

"And  you  mean  to  say  that  he  was  your  friend?" 

"You  have  heard  enough  to  judge  for  yourself.  You 
know  as  much  of  our  connection  as  I  know  myself.  The 
people  in  this  part  of  the  world  went  by  appearances,  and 
called  us  friends,  as  far  as  I  can  remember.  Appearances 


VICTORY  193 

— what  more,  what  better  can  you  ask  for?  In  fact  you 
can't  have  better.  You  can't  have  anything  else." 

"You  are  trying  to  confuse  me  with  your  talk,"  she 
cried.  "You  can't  make  fun  of  this." 

"Can't?  Well,  no,  I  can't.  It's  a  pity.  Perhaps  it  would 
have  been  the  best  way,"  said  Heyst,  in  a  tone  which  for 
him  could  be  called  gloomy.  "Unless  one  could  forget  the 
silly  business  altogether."  His  faint  playfulness  of  man- 
ner and  speech  returned,  like  a  habit  one  has  schooled  one- 
self into,  even  before  his  forehead  had  cleared  completely. 
"But  why  are  you  looking  so  hard  at  me?  Oh,  I  don't 
object,  and  I  shall  try  not  to  flinch.  Your  eyes " 

He  was  looking  straight  into  them,  and  as  a  matter  of 
fact  had  forgotten  all  about  the  late  Morrison  at  that  mo- 
ment. 

"No,"  he  exclaimed  suddenly.  "What  an  impenetrable 
girl  you  are,  Lena,  with  those  grey  eyes  of  yours !  Win- 
dows of  the  soul,  as  some  poet  has  said.  The  fellow  must 
have  been  a  glazier  by  vocation.  Well,  nature  has  pro- 
vided excellently  for  the  shyness  of  your  soul." 

When  he  ceased  speaking,  the  girl  came  to  herself  with 
a  catch  of  her  breath.  He  heard  her  voice,  the  varied 
charm  of  which  he  thought  he  knew  so  well,  saying  with 
an  unfamiliar  intonation: 

"And  that  partner  of  yours  is  dead?" 

"Morrison?  Oh,  yes,  as  I've  told  you,  he " 

"You  never  told  me." 

"Didn't  I?  I  thought  I  did;  or,  rather,  I  thought  you 
must  know.  It  seems  impossible  that  anybody  with  whom 
I  speak  should  not  know  that  Morrison  is  dead." 

She  lowered  her  eyelids,  and  Heyst  was  startled  by 
something  like  an  expression  of  horror  on  her  face. 

"Morrison!"  she  whispered  in  an  appalled  tone.  "Mor- 
rison!" Her  head  drooped.  Unable  to  see  her  features, 
Heyst  could  tell  from  her  voice  that  for  some  reason  or 
other  she  was  profoundly  moved  by  the  syllables  of  that 


194  VICTORY 

unromantic  name.  A  thought  flashed  through  his  head — 
could  she  have  known  Morrison?  But  the  mere  differ- 
ence of  their  origins  made  it  wildly  improbable. 

"This  is  very  extraordinary!"  he  said.  "Have  you  ever 
heard  the  name  before?" 

Her  head  moved  quickly  several  times  in  tiny  affirma- 
tive nods,  as  if  she  could  not  trust  herself  to  speak,  or 
even  to  look  at  him.  She  was  biting  her  lower  lip. 

"Did  you  ever  know  anybody  of  that  name?"  he  asked. 

The  girl  answered  by  a  negative  sign :  and  then  at  last 
she  spoke,  jerkily,  as  if  forcing  herself  .against  some  doubt 
or  fear.  She  had  heard  of  that  very  man,  she  told  Heyst. 

"Impossible!"  he  said  positively.  "You  are  mistaken. 
You  couldn't  have  heard  of  him.  It's " 

He  stopped  short,  with  the  thought  that  to  talk  like  this 
was  perfectly  useless ;  that  one  doesn't  argue  against  thin 
air. 

"But  I  did  hear  of  him;  only  I  didn't  know  then,  I 
couldn't  guess,  that  it  was  your  partner  they  were  talking 
about." 

"Talking  about  my  partner?"  repeated  Heyst  slowly. 

"No."  Her  mind  seemed  almost  as  bewildered,  as  full 
of  incredulity,  as  his.  "No.  They  were  talking  of  you, 
really ;  only  I  didn't  know  it." 

"Who  were  they?"  Heyst  raised  his  voice.  "Who  was 
talking  of  me?  Talking  where?" 

With  the  first  question  he  had  lifted  himself  from  his 
reclining  position;  at  the  last  he  was  on  his  knees  before 
her,  their  heads  on  a  level. 

"Why,  in  that  town,  in  that  hotel.  Where  else  could  it 
have  been?"  she  said. 

The  idea  of  being  talked  about  was  always  novel  to 
Heyst's  simplified  conception  of  himself.  For  a  moment 
he  was  as  much  surprised  as  if  he  had  believed  himself  to 
be  a  mere  gliding  shadow  among  men.  Besides,  he  had  in 


VICTORY  195 

him  a  half -unconscious  notion  that  he  was  above  the  level 
of  island  gossip. 

"But  you  said  first  that  it  was  of  Morrison  they  talked," 
he  remarked  to  the  girl,  sinking  on  his  heels,  and  no  longer 
much  interested.  "Strange  that  you  should  have  the  op- 
portunity to  hear  any  talk  at  all !  I  was  rather  under  the 
impression  that  you  never  saw  anybody  belonging  to  the 
town  except  from  the  platform." 

"You  forget  that  I  was  not  living  with  the  other  girls," 
she  said.  "After  meals  they  used  to  go  back  to  the  Pavil- 
ion, but  I  had  to  stay  in  the  hotel  and  do  my  sewing,  or 
what  not,  in  the  room  where  they  talked." 

"I  didn't  think  of  that.  By  the  by,  you  never  told  me 
who  they  were." 

"Why,  that  horrible  red-faced  beast,"  she  said,  with  all 
the  energy  of  disgust  which  the  mere  thought  of  the  hotel- 
keeper  provoked  in  her. 

"Oh,  Schomberg!"  Heyst  murmured  carelessly. 

"He  talked  to  the  boss — to  Zangiacomo,  I  mean.  I  had 
to  sit  there.  That  devil-woman  sometimes  wouldn't  let  me 
go  away.  I  mean  Mrs.  Zangiacomo." 

"I  guessed,"  murmured  Heyst.  "She  liked  to  torment 
you  in  a  variety  of  ways.  But  it  is  really  strange  that  the 
hotel-keeper  should  talk  of  Morrison  to  Zangiacomo.  As 
far  as  I  can  remember  he  saw  very  little  of  Morrison  pro- 
fessionally. He  knew  many  others  much  better." 

The  girl  shuddered  slightly. 

"That  was  the  only  name  I  ever  overheard.  I  would 
get  as  far  away  from  them  as  I  could,  to  the  other  end  of 
the  room;  but  when  that  beast  started  shouting,  I  could 
not  help  hearing.  I  wish  I  had  never  heard  anything.  If 
I  had  got  up  and  gone  out  of  the  room  I  don't  suppose 
the  woman  would  have  killed  me  for  it;  but  she  would 
have  rowed  me  in  a  nasty  way.  She  would  have  threatened 
me  and  called  me  names.  That  sort,  when  they  know  you 
are  helpless,  there's  nothing  to  stop  them.  I  don't  know 


196  VICTORY 

how  it  is,  but  bad  people,  real  bad  people  that  you  can  see 
are  bad,  they  get  over  me  somehow.  It's  the  way  they  set 
about  downing  one.  I  am  afraid  of  wickedness." 

Heyst  watched  the  changing  expressions  of  her  face. 
He  encouraged  her,  profoundly  sympathetic,  a  little 
amused. 

'*I  quite  understand.  You  needn't  apologize  for  your 
great  delicacy  in  the  perception  of  inhuman  evil.  I  am  a 
little  like  you." 

''I  am  not  very  plucky,"  she  said. 

"Well!  I  don't  know  myself  what  I  would  do,  what 
countenance  I  would  have  before  a  creature  which  would 
strike  me  as  being  the  evil  incarnate.  Don't  you  be 
ashamed." 

She  sighed,  looked  up  with  her  pale,  candid  gaze  and  a 
timid  expression  of  her  face,  and  murmured : 

"You  don't  seem  to  want  to  know  what  he  was  saying." 

"About  poor  Morrison?  It  couldn't  have  been  anything 
bad,  for  the  poor  fellow  was  innocence  itself.  And  then, 
you  know,  he  is  dead,  and  nothing  can  possibly  matter  to 
him  now." 

"But  I  tell  you  that  it  was  of  you  he  was  talking!"  she 
cried.  "He  was  saying  that  Morrison's  partner  first  got  all 
there  was  to  get  out  of  him,  and  then,  and  then — well,  as 
good  as  murdered  him — sent  him  out  to  die  somewhere!" 

"You  believe  that  of  me?"  said  Heyst,  after  a  moment 
of  perfect  silence. 

"I  didn't  know  it  had  anything  to  do  with  you.  Schom- 
berg  was  talking  of  some  Swede.  How  was  I  to  know  ?  It 
was  only  when  you  began  telling  me  about  how  you  came 
here " 

"And  now  you  have  my  version."  Heyst  forced  him- 
self to  speak  quietly.  "So  that's  how  the  business  looked 
from  outside!"  he  muttered. 

"I  remember  him  saying  that  everybody  in  these  parts 
knew  the  story,"  the  girl  added  breathlessly. 


VICTORY  197 

"Strange  that  it  should  hurt  me !"  mused  Heyst  to  him- 
self ;  "yet  it  does.  I  seem  to  be  as  much  of  a  fool  as  those 
everybodies  who  know  the  story — and  no  doubt  believe  it. 
Can  you  remember  any  more  ?"  he  addressed  the  girl  in  a 
grimly  polite  tone.  "I've  often  heard  of  the  moral  advan- 
tages of  seeing  oneself  as  others  see  one.  Let  us  investi- 
gate further.  Can't  you  recall  something  else  that  every- 
body knows  ?" 

"Oh!  Don't  laugh!"  she  cried. 

"Did  I  laugh?  I  assure  you  I  was  not  aware  of  it.  I 
won't  ask  you  whether  you  believe  the  hotel-keeper's  ver- 
sion. Surely  you  must  know  the  value  of  human  judg- 
ment." 

She  unclasped  her  hands,  moved  them  slightly,  and 
twined  her  fingers  as  before.  Protest?  Assent?  Was  there 
to  be  nothing  more?  He  was  relieved  when  she  spoke  in 
that  warm  and  wonderful  voice  which  in  itself  comforted 
and  fascinated  one's  heart,  which  made  her  lovable. 

"I  heard  this  before  you  and  I  ever  spoke  to  each  other. 
It  went  out  of  my  memory  afterwards.  Everything  went 
out  of  my  memory  then;  and  I  was  glad  of  it.  It  was  a 
.fresh  start  for  me,  with  you — and  you  know  it.  I  wish  I 
had  forgotten  who  I  was — ^that  would  have  been  best ;  and 
I  very  nearly  did  forget." 

He  was  moved  by  the  vibrating  quality  of  the  last 
words.  She  seemed  to  be  talking  low  of  some  wonderful 
enchantment,  in  mysterious  terms  of  special  significance. 
He  thought  that  if  she  only  could  talk  to  him  in  some  un- 
known tongue,  she  would  enslave  him  altogether  by  the 
sheer  beauty  of  the  sound,  suggesting  infinite  depths  of 
wisdom  and  feeling. 

"But,"  she  went  on,  "the  name  stuck  in  my  head,  it 
seems ;  and  when  you  mentioned  it " 

"It  broke  the  spell,"  muttered  Heyst  in  angry  disap- 
pointment, as  if  he  had  been  deceived  in  some  hope. 

The  girl,  from  her  position  a  little  above  him,  surveyed 


igS  VICTORY 

with  still  eyes  the  abstracted  silence  of  the  man  on  whom 
she  now  depended  with  a  completeness  of  which  she  had 
not  been  vividly  conscious  before,  because,  till  then,  she 
had  never  felt  herself  swinging  between  the  abysses  of 
earth  and  heaven  in  the  hollow  of  his  arm.  What  if  he 
should  grow  weary  of  the  burden! 

"And,  moreover,  nobody  had  ever  believed  that  tale!" 

Heyst  came  out  with  an  abrupt  burst  of  sound  which 
made  her  open  her  steady  eyes  wider,  with  an  effect  of  im- 
mense surprise.  It  was  a  purely  mechanical  eflfect,  because 
she  was  neither  surprised  nor  puzzled.  In  fact,  she  could 
understand  him  better  then  than  at  any  moment  since  she 
first  set  eyes  on  him. 

He  laughed  scornfully. 

"What  am  I  thinking  of  ?"  he  cried.  "As  if  it  could  mat- 
ter to  me  what  anybody  had  ever  said  or  believed,  from 
the  beginning  of  the  world  till  the  crack  of  doom !" 

"I  never  heard  you  laugh  till  to-day,''  she  observed. 
"This  is  the  second  time." 

He  scrambled  to  his  feet  and  towered  above  her. 

"That's  because,  when  one's  heart  has  been  broken  into 
in  the  way  you  have  broken  into  mine,  all  sorts  of  weak- 
nesses are  free  to  enter — shame,  anger,  stupid  indigna- 
tions, stupid  fears — stupid  laughter,  too.  I  wonder  what 
interpretation  you  are  putting  on  it?" 

"It  wasn't  gay,  certainly,"  she  said.  "But  why  are  you 
angry  with  me?  Are  you  sorry  you  took  me  away  from 
those  beasts?  I  told  you  who  I  was.  You  could  see  it." 

"Heavens!"  he  muttered.  He  had  regained  his  com- 
mand of  himself.  "I  assure  you  I  could  see  much  more 
than  you  could  tell  me.  I  could  see  quite  a  lot  that  you 
don't  even  suspect  yet;  but  you  can't  be  seen  quite 
through." 

He  sank  to  the  ground  by  her  side  and  took  her  hand. 
.  )he  asked  gently : 

"What  more  do  you  want  from  me?" 


VICTORY  199 

He  made  no  sound  for  a  time. 

"The  impossible,  I  suppose,"  he  said  very  low,  as  one 
makes  a  confidence,  and  pressing  the  hand  he  grasped. 

It  did  not  return  the  pressure.  He  shook  his  head  as  if 
to  drive  away  the  thought  of  this,  and  added  in  a  louder, 
light  tone : 

"Nothing  less.  And  it  isn*t  because  I  think  little  of  what 
I Ve  got  already.  Oh,  no !  It  is  because  I  think  so  much  of 
this  possession  of  mine  that  I  can't  have  it  complete 
enough.  I  know  it's  unreasonable.  You  can't  hold  back 
anything — now." 

"Indeed  I  couldn't,"  she  whispered,  letting  her  hand  lie 
passive  in  his  tight  grasp.  "I  only  wish  I  could  give  you 
something  more,  or  better,  or  whatever  it  is  you  want." 

He  was  touched  by  the  sincere  accent  of  these  simple 
words. 

"I  tell  you  what  you  can  do — ^you  can  tell  me  whether 
you  would  have  gone  with  me  like  this  if  you  had  known 
of  whom  that  abominable  idiot  of  a  hotel-keeper  was 
speaking.  A  murderer — no  less !" 

"But  I  didn't  know  you  at  all  then,"  she  cried.  "And  I 
had  the  sense  to  understand  what  he  was  saying.  It  wasn't 
murder,  really.  I  never  thought  it  was." 

"What  made  him  invent  such  an  atrocity?"  Heyst  ex- 
claimed. "He  seems  a  stupid  animal.  He  is  stupid.  How 
did  he  manage  to  hatch  that  pretty  tale  ?  Have  I  a  particu- 
larly vile  countenance  ?  Is  black  selfishness  written  all  over 
my  face?  Or  is  that  sort  of  thing  so  universally  human 
that  it  might  be  said  of  anybody?" 

"It  wasn't  murder,"  she  insisted  earnestly. 

"I  know.  I  understand.  It  was  worse.  As  to  killing  a 
man,  which  would  be  a  comparatively  decent  thing  to  do, 
well — I  have  never  done  that." 

"Why  should  you  do  it?"  she  asked  in  a  frightened 
voice. 

"My  dear  girl,  you  don't  know  the  sort  of  life  I  have 


200  VICTORY 

been  leading  in  unexplored  countries,  in  the  wilds;  it's 
difficult  to  give  you  an  idea.  There  are  men  who  haven't 
been  in  such  tight  places  as  I  have  found  myself  in  who 
have  had  to — to  shed  blood,  as  the  saying  is.  Even  the 
wilds  hold  prizes  which  tempt  some  people;  but  I  had 
no  schemes,  no  plans — and  not  even  great  firmness  of 
mind  to  make  me  unduly  obstinate.  I  was  simply  moving 
un,  while  the  others,  perhaps,  were  going  somewhere.  An 
indifference  as  to  roads  and  purposes  makes  one  meeker, 
as  it  were.  And  I  may  say  truly,  too,  that  I  never  did  care, 
I  won't  say  for  life — I  had  scorned  what  people  call  by 
that  name  from  the  first — but  for  being  alive.  I  don't  know 
if  that  is  what  men  call  courage,  but  I  doubt  it  very 
much." 

''You !  You  have  no  courage  ?"  she  protested. 

'T  really  don't  know.  Not  the  sort  that  always  itches 
for  a  weapon,  for  I  have  never  been  anxious  to  use  one  in 
the  quarrels  that  a  man  gets  into  in  the  most  innocent  way, 
sometimes.  The  differences  for  which  men  murder  each 
other  are,  like  everything  else  they  do,  the  most  contemp- 
tible, the  most  pitiful  things  to  look  back  upon.  No,  I've 
never  killed  a  man  or  loved  a  woman — not  even  in  my 
thoughts,  not  even  in  my  dreams." 

He  raised  her  hand  to  his  lips,  and  let  them  rest  on  it 
for  a  space,  during  which  she  moved  a  little  closer  to  him. 
After  the  lingering  kiss  he  did  not  relinquish  his  hold. 

*'To  slay,  to  love — the  greatest  enterprises  of  life  upon 
a  man !  And  I  have  no  experience  of  either.  You  must 
forgive  me  anything  that  may  have  appeared  to  you  awk- 
ward in  my  behaviour,  inexpressive  in  my  speeches,  un- 
timely in  my  silences." 

He  moved  uneasily,  a  little  disappointed  by  her  atti- 
tude, but  indulgent  to  it,  and  feeling,  in  this  moment  of 
perfect  quietness,  that  in  holding  her  surrendered  hand  he 
had  found  a  closer  communion  than  they  had  ever  achieved 
before.  But  even  then  there  still  lingered  in  him  a  sense  of 


VICTORY  20I 

incompleteness  not  altogether  overcome — which,  it  seemed, 
nothing  ever  would  overcome — the  fatal  imperfection  of 
all  the  gifts  of  life,  which  makes  of  them  a  delusion  and 
a  snare. 

All  of  a  sudden  he  squeezed  her  hand  angrily.  His  deli- 
cately playful  equanimity,  the  product  of  kindness  and 
scorn,  had  perished  with  the  loss  of  his  bitter  liberty. 

"Not  murder,  you  say!  I  should  think  not.  But  when 
you  led  me  to  talk  just  now,  when  the  name  turned  up, 
when  you  understood  that  it  was  of  me  that  these  things 
had  been  said,  you  showed  a  strange  emotion.  I  could  see 
it." 

"I  was  a  bit  startled,"  she  said. 

"At  the  baseness  of  my  conduct  ?"  he  asked. 

"I  wouldn't  judge  you;  not  for  anything." 

"Really?" 

"It  would  be  as  if  I  dared  to  judge  everything  that 
there  is."  With  her  other  hand  she  made  a  gesture  that 
seemed  to  embrace  in  one  movement  the  earth  and  the 
heaven.  "I  wouldn't  do  such  a  thing." 

Then  came  a  silence,  broken  at  last  by  Heyst : 

"I !  I !  do  a  deadly  wrong  to  my  poor  Morrison !"  he 
cried.  "I,  who  could  not  bear  to  hurt  his  feelings.  I,  who 
respected  his  very  madness !  Yes,  this  madness,  the  wreck 
of  which  you  can  see  lying  about  the  jetty  of  Diamond 
Bay.  What  else  could  I  do?  He  insisted  on  regarding  me 
as  his  saviour ;  he  was  always  restraining  the  eternal  obli- 
gation on  the  tip  of  his  tongue,  till  I  was  burning  with 
shame  at  his  gratitude.  What  could  I  do?  He  was  going 
to  repay  me  with  this  infernal  coal,  and  I  had  to  join  him 
as  one  joins  a  child's  game  in  a  nursery.  One  would  no 
more  have  thought  of  humiliating  him  than  one  would 
think  of  humiliating  a  child.  What's  the  use  of  talking  of 
all  this !  Of  course,  the  people  here  could  not  understand 
the  truth  of  our  relation  to  each  other.  But  what  business 
of  theirs  was  it  ?  Kill  old  Morrison !  Well,  it  is  less  crimi- 


202  VICTORY 

iial,  less  base — I  am  not  saying  it  is  less  difficult — ^to  kill  a 
man  than  to  cheat  him  in  that  way.  You  understand  that  ?" 

She  nodded  slightly,  but  more  than  once  and  with  evi- 
dent conviction.  His  eyes  rested  on  her,  inquisitive,  ready 
for  tenderness. 

"But  it  was  neither  one  nor  the  other,'*  he  went  on. 
"Then,  why  your  emotion?  All  you  confess  is  that  you 
wouldn't  judge  me." 

She  turned  upon  him  her  veiled,  unseeing  grey  eyes  in 
which  nothing  of  her  wonder  could  be  read. 

"I  said  I  couldn't,"  she  whispered. 

"But  you  thought  that  there  was  no  smoke  without 
fire!"  The  playfulness  of  tone  hardly  concealed  his  irrita- 
tion. "What  power  there  must  be  in  words,  only  imper- 
fectly heard — for  you  did  not  listen  with  particular  care, 
did  you?  What  were  they?  What  evil  effort  of  invention 
drove  them  into  that  idiot's  mouth  out  of  his  lying  throat  ? 
If  you  were  to  try  to  remember,  they  would  perhaps  con- 
vince me,  too." 

"I  didn't  listen,"  she  protested.  "What  was  it  to  me 
what  they  said  of  anybody?  He  was  saying  that  there 
never  were  such  loving  friends  to  look  at  as  you  two; 
then,  when  you  got  all  you  wanted  out  of  him  and  got 
thoroughly  tired  of  him,  too,  you  kicked  him  out  to  go 
home  and  die." 

Indignation,  with  an  undercurrent  of  some  other  feel- 
ing, rang  in  these  quoted  words,  uttered  in  her  pure  and 
enchanting  voice.  She  ceased  abruptly  and  lowered  her 
long,  dark  lashes,  as  if  mortally  weary,  sick  at  heart. 

"Of  course,  why  shouldn't  you  get  tired  of  that  or  any 
other — company?  You  aren't  like  any  one  else  and — and 
the  thought  of  it  made  me  unhappy  suddenly ;  but  indeed, 
I  did  not  believe  anything  bad  of  you.  I " 

A  brusque  movement  of  his  arm,  flinging  her  hand 
away,  stopped  her  short.  Heyst  had  again  lost  control  of 


VICTORY  203 

himself.  He  would  have  shouted,  if  shouting  had  been  in 
his  character. 

"No,  this  earth  must  be  the  appointed  hatching  planet 
of  calumny  enough  to  furnish  the  whole  universe!  I  feel 
a  disgust  at  my  own  person,  as  if  I  had  tumbled  into  some 
filthy  hole.  Pah!  And  you — all  you  can  say  is  that  you 
won't  judge  me ;  that  you '' 

She  raised  her  head  at  this  attack,  though  indeed  he 
had  not  turned  to  her. 

"I  don't  believe  anything  bad  of  you,"  she  repeated.  "I 
couldn't." 

He  made  a  gesture  as  if  to  say : 

"That's  sufficient." 

In  his  soul  and  in  his  body  he  experienced  a  nervous 
reaction  from  tenderness.  All  at  once,  without  a  transi- 
tion, he  detested  her.  But  only  for  a  moment.  He  remem- 
bered that  she  was  pretty,  and,  more,  that  she  had  a  special 
grace  in  the  intimacy  of  life.  She  had  the  secret  of  indi- 
viduality which  excites — and  escapes. 

He  jumped  up  and  began  to  walk  to  and  fro.  Presently 
his  hidden  fury  fell  into  dust  within  him,  like  a  crazy 
structure,  leaving  behind  emptiness,  desolation,  regret. 
His  resentment  was  not  against  the  girl,  but  against  life 
itself — ^that  commonest  of  snares,  in  which  he  felt  himself 
caught,  seeing  clearly  the  plot  of  plots  and  unconsoled  by 
the  lucidity  of  his  mind. 

He  swerved  and,  stepping  up  to  her,  sank  to  the  ground 
by  her  side.  Before  she  could  make  a  movement,  or  even 
turn  her  head  his  way,  he  took  her  in  his  arms  and  kissed 
her  lips.  He  tasted  on  them  the  bitterness  of  a  tear  fallen 
there.  He  had  never  seen  her  cry.  It  was  like  another  ap- 
peal to  his  tenderness — a  new  seduction.  The  girl  glanced 
round,  moved  suddenly  away,  and  averted  her  face.  With 
her  hand  she  signed  imperiously  to  him  to  leave  her  alone 
— a  command  which  Heyst  did  not  obey. 


V 

When  she  opened  her  eyes  at  last  and  sat  up,  Heyst 
scrambled  quickly  to  his  feet  and  went  to  pick  up  her  cork 
helmet,  which  had  rolled  a  little  way  off.  Meanwhile  she 
busied  herself  in  doing  up  her  hair,  plaited  on  the  top  of 
her  head  in  two  heavy,  dark  tresses,  which  had  come 
loose.  He  tendered  her  the  helmet  in  silence,  and  waited 
as  if  unwilling  to  hear  the  sound  of  his  own  voice. 

"We  had  better  go  down  now,"  he  suggested  in  a  low 
tone. 

He  extended  his  hand  to  help  her  up.  He  had  the  in- 
tention to  smile,  but  abandoned  it  at  the  nearer  sight  of 
her  still  face,  in  which  was  depicted  the  infinite  lassitude 
of  her  soul.  On  their  way  to  regain  the  forest  path  they 
had  to  pass  through  the  spot  from  which  the  view  of  the 
sea  could  be  obtained.  The  flaming  abyss  of  emptiness, 
the  liquid,  undulating  glare,  the  tragic  brutality  of  the 
light,  made  her  long  for  the  friendly  night,  with  its  stars 
stilled  by  an  austere  spell;  for  the  velvety  dark  sky  and 
the  mysterious  great  shadow  of  the  sea,  conveying  peace 
to  the  day-w^eary  heart.  She  put  her  hand  to  her  eyes.  Be- 
hind her  back  Heyst  spoke  gently. 

"Let  us  get  on,  Lena." 

She  walked  ahead  in  silence.  Heyst  remarked  that  they 
had  never  been  out  before  during  the  hottest  hours.  It 
would  do  her  no  good,  he  feared.  This  solicitude  pleased 
and  soothed  her.  She  felt  more  and  more  like  herself — a 
poor  London  girl  playing  in  an  orchestra,  and  snatched 
out  from  the  humiliations,  the  squalid  dangers  of  a  mis- 
erable existence,  by  a  man  like  whom  there  was  not,  there 
\:ould  not  be,  another  in  this  world.  She  felt  this  with  ela- 

204 


VICTORY  205 

tion,  with  uneasiness,  with  an  intimate  pride — and  with  a 
pecuHar  sinking  of  the  heart. 

"I  am  not  easily  knocked  out  by  any  such  thing  as 
heat,"  she  said  decisively. 

"Yes,  but  I  don't  forget  that  you're  not  a  tropical  bird." 

"You  weren't  born  in  these  parts,  either,"  she  returned. 

"No,  and  perhaps  I  haven't  even  your  physique.  I  am 
a  transplanted  being.  Transplanted !  I  ought  to  call  myself 
uprooted — an  unnatural  state  of  existence;  but  a  man  is 
supposed  to  stand  anything." 

She  looked  back  at  him  and  received  a  smile.  He  told 
her  to  keep  in  the  shelter  of  the  forest  path,  which  was 
very  still  and  close,  full  of  heat  if  free  from  glare.  Now 
and  then  they  had  glimpses  of  the  company's  old  clearing 
blazing  with  light,  in  which  the  black  stumps  of  trees 
stood  charred,  without  shadows,  miserable  and  sinister. 
They  crossed  the  open  in  a  direct  line  for  the  bungalow. 
On  the  verandah  they  fancied  they  had  a  glimpse  of  a 
vanishing  Wang,  though  the  girl  was  not  at  all  sure  that 
she  had  seen  anything  move.  Heyst  had  no  doubts. 

"Wang  has  been  looking  out  for  us.  We  are  late." 

"Was  he?  I  thought  I  saw  something  white  for  a  mo- 
ment, and  then  I  did  not  see  it  any  more." 

"That's  it — he  vanishes.  It's  a  very  remarkable  gift  in 
that  Chinaman." 

"Are  they  all  like  that?"  she  asked  with  naive  curiosity 
and  uneasiness. 

"Not  in  such  perfection,"  said  Heyst,  amused. 

He  noticed  with  approval  that  she  was  not  heated  b}'' 
the  walk.  The  drops  of  perspiration  on  her  forehead  were 
like  dew  on  the  cool,  white  petal  of  a  flower.  He  looked  at 
her  figure  of  grace  and  strength,  solid  and  supple,  with  an 
ever-growing  appreciation. 

"Go  in  and  rest  yourself  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour ;  and 
then  Mr.  Wang  will  give  us  something  to  eat,"  he  said. 

They  had  found  the  table  laid.  When  they  came  to- 


2o6  VICTORY 

gether  again  and  sat  down  to  it,  Wang  materialised  with- 
out a  sound,  unheard,  uncalled,  and  did  his  office.  Which 
being  accomplished,  at  a  given  moment  he  was  not. 

A  great  silence  brooded  over  Samburan — the  silence  of 
the  great  heat  that  seems  pregnant  with  fatal  issues,  like 
the  silence  of  ardent  thought.  Heyst  remained  alone  in  the 
big  room.  The  girl  seeing  him  take  up  a  book,  had  re- 
treated to  her  chamber.  Heyst  sat  down  under  his  father's 
portrait;  and  the  abominable  calumny  crept  back  into  his 
recollection.  The  taste  of  it  came  on  his  lips,  nauseating 
and  corrosive  like  some  kinds  of  poison.  He  was  tempted 
to  spit  on  the  floor,  naively,  in  sheer  unsophisticated  dis- 
gust of  the  physical  sensation.  He  shook  his  head,  sur- 
prised at  himself.  He  was  not  used  to  receive  his  intel- 
lectual impressions  in  that  way — reflected  in  movements 
of  carnal  emotion.  He  stirred  impatiently  in  his  chair,  and 
raised  the  book  to  his  eyes  with  both  hands.  It  was  one  of 
his  father's.  He  opened  it  haphazard,  and  his  eyes  fell  on 
the  middle  of  the  page.  The  elder  Heyst  had  written  of 
everything  in  many  books — of  space  and  of  time,  of  ani- 
mals and  of  stars ;  analysing  ideas  and  actions,  the  laugh- 
ter and  the  frowns  of  men,  and  the  grimaces  of  their 
agony.  The  son  read,  shrinking  into  himself,  composing 
his  face  as  if  under  the  author's  eye,  with  a  vivid  con- 
sciousness of  the  portrait  on  his  right  hand,  a  little  above 
his  head ;  a  wonderful  presence  in  its  heavy  frame  on  the 
flimsy  wall  of  mats,  looking  exiled  and  at  home,  out  of 
place  and  masterful,  in  the  painted  immobility  of  profile. 

And  Heyst,  the  son,  read: 

Of  the  stratagems  of  life  the  most  cruel  is  the  consolation 
of  love — the  most  subtle,  too;  for  the  desire  is  the  bed  of 
dreams. 

He  turned  the  pages  of  the  little  volume,  "Storm  and 
Dust,"  glancing  here  and  there  at  the  broken  text  of  re- 
flections,  maxims,   short  phrases,   enigmatical   sometimes 


VICTORY  207 

and  sometimes  eloquent.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he  was 
hearing  his  father's  voice,  speaking  and  ceasing  to  speak 
again.  Startled  at  first,  he  ended  by  finding  a  charm  in  the 
illusion.  He  abandoned  himself  to  the  half-belief  that 
something  of  his  father  dwelt  yet  on  earth — a  ghostly 
voice,  audible  to  the  ear  of  his  own  flesh  and  blood.  With 
what  strange  serenity,  mingled  with  terrors,  had  that  man 
considered  the  universal  nothingness !  He  had  plunged  into 
it  headlong,  perhaps  to  render  death,  the  answer  that  faced 
one  at  every  inquiry,  more  supportable. 

Heyst  stirred,  and  the  ghostly  voice  ceased;  but  his 
eyes  followed  the  words  on  the  last  page  of  the  book : 

Men  of  tormented  conscience,  or  of  a  criminal  imagination, 
are  aware  of  much  that  minds  of  a  peaceful,  resigned  cast  do 
not  even  suspect.  It  is  not  poets  alone  who  dare  descend  into 
the  abyss  of  infernal  regions,  or  even  who  dream  of  such  a 
descent.  The  most  inexpressive  of  human  beings  must  have 
said  to  himself,  at  one  time  or  another:  ^'Anything  but 
this  !'*... 

We  all  have  our  instants  of  clairvoyance.  They  are  not  very 
helpful.  The  character  of  the  scheme  does  not  permit  that  or 
anything  else  to  be  helpful.  Properly  speaking  its  character, 
judged  by  the  standards  established  by  its  victims,  is  infa- 
mous. It  excuses  every  violence  of  protest  and  at  the  same  time 
never  fails  to  crush  it,  just  as  it  crushes  the  blindest  assent. 
The  so-called  wickedness  must  be,  like  the  so-called  virtue,  its 
own  reward — to  be  anything  at  all.  .  .  . 

Clairvoyance  or  no  clairvoyance,  men  love  their  captivity. 
To  the  unknown  force  of  negation  they  prefer  the  miserably 
tumbled  bed  of  their  servitude.  Man  alone  can  give  one  the 
disgust  of  pity;  yet  I  find  it  easier  to  believe  in  the  misfor- 
tune of  mankind  than  in  its  wickedness. 

These  were  the  last  words.  Heyst  lowered  the  book  to 
his  knees.  Lena's  voice  spoke  above  his  drooping  head : 

"You  sit  there  as  if  you  were  unhappy." 

"I  thought  you  were  asleep,"  he  said. 

"I  was  lying  down,  right  enough,  but  I  never  closed  my 
eyes." 


5o8  VICTORY 

"The  rest  would  have  done  you  good  after  our  walk. 
Didn't  you  try?" 

"I  was  lying  down,  I  tell  you,  but  sleep  I  couldn't." 

"And  you  made  no  sound !  What  want  of  sincerity !  Or 
did  you  want  to  be  alone  for  a  time  ?" 

"I — alone !"  she  murmured. 

He  noticed  her  eyeing  the  book,  and  got  up  to  put  it 
back  in  the  bookcase.  When  he  turned  round,  he  saw  that 
she  had  dropped  into  the  chair — it  was  the  one  she  always 
used — and  looked  as  if  her  strength  had  suddenly  gone 
from  her,  leaving  her  only  her  youth,  which  seemed  very 
pathetic,  very  much  at  his  mercy.  He  moved  quickly 
towards  the  chair. 

"Tired,  are  you?  It's  my  fault,  taking  you  up  so  high 
and  keeping  you  out  so  long.  Such  a  windless  day,  too !" 

She  watched  his  concern,  her  pose  languid,  her  eyes 
raised  to  him,  but  as  unreadable  as  ever.  He  avoided 
looking  into  them  for  that  very  reason.  He  forgot  himself 
in  the  contemplation  of  those  passive  arms,  of  those  de- 
fenceless lips,  and — ^yes,  one  had  to  go  back  to  them — of 
those  wide-open  eyes.  Something  wild  in  their  grey  stare 
made  him  think  of  sea-birds  in  the  cold  murkiness  of  high 
latitudes.  He  started  when  she  spoke,  all  the  charm  of 
physical  intimacy  revealed  suddenly  in  that  voice. 

"You  should  try  to  love  me!"  she  said. 

He  made  a  movement  of  astonishment. 

"Try!"   he  muttered.   "But  it  seems  to  me "   He 

broke  off,  saying  to  himself  that  if  he  loved  her,  he  had 
never  told  her  so  in  so  many  words.  Simple  words !  They 
died  on  his  lips.  "What  makes  you  say  that?"  he  asked. 

She  lowered  her  eyelids  and  turned  her  head  a  little. 

"I  have  done  nothing,"  she  said  in  a  low  voice.  "It's  you 
who  have  been  good,  helpful  and  tender  to  me.  Perhaps 
you  love  me  for  that — just  for  that ;  or  perhaps  you  love 
me  for  company,  and  because — well!  But  sometimes  it 
seems  to  me  that  you  can  never  love  me  for  myself,  only 


VICTORY  209 

for  myself,  as  people  do  love  each  other  when  it  is  to  be 
for  ever."  Her  head  drooped.  "For  ever,"  she  breathed 
out  again;  then,  still  more  faintly,  she  added  an  entreat- 
ing: "Do  try!" 

These  last  words  went  straight  to  his  heart — ^the  sound 
of  them  more  than  the  sense.  He  did  not  know  what  to 
say,  either  from  want  of  practice  in  dealing  with  women 
or  simply  from  his  innate  honesty  of  thought.  All  his  de- 
fences were  broken  now.  Life  had  him  fairly  by  the  throat. 
But  he  managed  a  smile,  though  she  was  not  looking  at 
him;  yes,  he  did  manage  it — ^the  well-known  Heyst  smile 
of  playful  courtesy,  so  familiar  to  all  sorts  and  conditions 
of  men  in  the  islands. 

"My  dear  Lena,"  he  said,  "it  looks  as  if  you  were  try- 
ing to  pick  a  very  unnecessary  quarrel  with  me — of  all 
people !" 

She  made  no  movement.  With  his  elbows  spread  out  he 
was  twisting  the  ends  of  his  long  moustaches,  very  mascu- 
line and  perplexed,  enveloped  in  the  atmosphere  of  femi- 
ninity as  in  a  cloud,  suspecting  pitfalls,  and  as  if  afraid  to 
move. 

"I  must  admit,  though,"  he  added,  "that  there  is  no  one 
else;  and  I  suppose  a  certain  amount  of  quarrelling  is 
necessary  for  existence  in  this  world." 

That  girl,  seated  in  her  chair  in  graceful  quietude,  was 
to  him  like  a  script  in  an  unknown  language,  or  even  more 
simply  mysterious :  like  any  writing  to  the  illiterate.  As 
far  as  women  went  he  was  altogether  uninstructed  and  he 
had  not  the  gift  of  intuition  which  is  fostered  in  the  days 
of  youth  by  dreams  and  visions,  exercises  of  the  heart  fit- 
ting it  for  the  encounters  of  a  world  in  which  love  itself 
rests  as  much  on  antagonism  as  on  attraction.  His  mental 
attitude  was  that  of  a  man  looking  this  way  and  that  on  a 
piece  of  writing  which  he  is  unable  to  decipher,  but  which 
may  be  big  with  some  revelation.  He  didn't  know  what  to 
say.  All  he  found  to  add  was : 


2IO  VICTORY 

"I  don't  even  understand  what  I  have  done  or  left  un- 
done to  distress  you  like  this." 

He  stopped,  struck  afresh  by  the  physical  and  moral 
sense  of  the  imperfection  of  their  relations — a  sense  which 
made  him  desire  her  constant  nearness,  before  his  eyes, 
under  his  hand,  and  which,  when  she  was  out  of  his  sight, 
made  her  so  vague,  so  elusive  and  illusory,  a  promise  that 
could  not  be  embraced  and  held. 

*'No!  I  don't  see  clearly  what  you  mean.  Is  your  mind 
turned  towards  the  future?"  he  interpellated  her  with 
marked  playfulness,  because  he  was  ashamed  to  let  such 
a  word  pass  his  lips.  But  all  his  cherished  negations  were 
falling  off  him  one  by  one. 

"Because  if  it  is  so  there  is  nothing  easier  than  to  dis- 
miss it.  In  our  future,  as  in  what  people  call  the  other 
life,  there  is  nothing  to  be  frightened  of." 

She  raised  her  eyes  to  him;  and  if  nature  had  formed 
them  to  express  an}1:hing  else  but  blank  candour  he  would 
have  learned  how  terrified  she  was  by  his  talk  and  the  fact 
that  her  sinking  heart  loved  him  more  desperately  than 
ever.  He  smiled  at  her. 

"Dismiss  all  thought  of  it,"  he  insisted.  "Surely  you 
don't  suspect  after  what  I  have  heard  from  you,  that  I 
am  anxious  to  return  to  mankind.  I !  I !  murder  my  poor 
Morrison!  It's  possible  that  I  may  be  really  capable  of 
that  which  they  say  I  have  done.  The  point  is  that  I 
haven't  done  it.  But  it  is  an  unpleasant  subject  to  me.  I 
ought  to  be  ashamed  to  confess  it — but  it  is !  Let  us  for- 
get it.  There's  that  in  you,  Lena,  which  can  console  me  for 
worse  things,  for  uglier  passages.  And  if  we  forget,  there 
are  no  voices  here  to  remind  us." 

She  had  raised  her  head  before  he  paused. 

"Nothing  can  break  in  on  us  here,"  he  went  on  and  as 
if  there  had  been  an  appeal  or  a  provocation  in  her  up- 
ward glance,  he  bent  down  and  took  her  under  the  arms, 
raising  her  straight  out  of  the  chair  into  a  sudden  and 


VICTORY  2U 

close  embrace.  Her  alacrity  to  respond,  which  made  her 
seem  as  light  as  a  feather,  warmed  his  heart  at  that  mo- 
ment more  than  closer  caresses  had  done  before.  He  had 
not  expected  that  ready  impulse  towards  himself  which 
had  been  dormant  in  her  passive  attitude.  He  had  just  felt 
the  clasp  of  her  arms  round  his  neck,  when,  with  a  slight 
exclamation — "He's  here!" — she  disengaged  herself  and 
bolted  away  into  her  room. 


VI 

Heyst  was  astounded.  Looking  all  round,  as  if  to  take 
the  whole  room  to  witness  of  this  outrage,  he  became 
aware  of  Wang  materialised  in  the  doorway.  The  intru- 
sion was  as  surprising  as  anything  could  be,  in  view  of  the 
strict  regularity  with  which  Wang  made  himself  visible. 
Heyst  was  tempted  to  laugh  at  first.  This  practical  com- 
ment on  his  affirmation  that  nothing  could  break  in  on 
them  relieved  the  strain  of  his  feelings.  He  was  a  little 
vexed,  too.  The  Chinaman  preserved  a  profound  silence. 

"What  do  you  want?"  asked  Heyst  sternly. 

"Boat  out  there,"  said  the  Chinaman  sternly. 

"Where?  What  do  you  mean?  Boat  adrift  in  the 
straits  ?" 

Some  subtle  change  in  Wang's  bearing  suggested  his 
being  out  of  breath ;  but  he  did  not  pant,  and  his  voice  was 
steady. 

"No— row." 

It  was  Heyst  now  who  was  startled  and  raised  his  voice. 

"Malay  man,  eh?" 

Wang  made  a  slight  negative  movement  with  his  head. 

"Do  you  hear,  Lena?"  Heyst  called  out.  "Wang  says 
there  is  a  boat  in  sight — somewhere  near,  apparently. 
Where's  that  boat,  Wang?" 

"Round  the  point,"  said  Wang,  leaping  into  Malay  un- 
expectedly, and  in  a  loud  voice.  "White  men — ^three." 

"So  close  as  that?"  exclaimed  Heyst,  moving  out  on  the 
verandah  followed  by  Wang.  "White  men?  Impossible!" 

Over  the  clearing  the  shadows  were  already  lengthen- 
ing. The  sun  hung  low;  a  ruddy  glare  lay  on  the  burnt 

212 


VICTORY  213 

black  patch  in  front  of  the  bungalow,  and  slanted  on  the 
ground  between  the  straight,  tall,  mast-like  trees  soaring 
a  hundred  feet  or  more  without  a  branch.  The  growth  of 
bushes  cut  off  all  view  of  the  jetty  from  the  verandah.  Far 
away  to  the  right  Wang's  hut,  or  rather  its  dark  roof  of 
mats,  could  be  seen  above  the  bamboo  fence  which  insured 
the  privacy  of  the  Alfuro  woman.  The  Chinaman  looked 
that  way  swiftly.  Heyst  paused,  and  then  stepped  back  a 
pace  into  the  room. 

"White  men,  Lena,  apparently.  What  are  you  doing?" 

"I  am  just  bathing  my  eyes  a  little,"  the  girl's  voice  said 
from  the  inner  room. 

"Oh,  yes ;  all  right !" 

"Do  you  want  me?" 

"No.  You  had  better — I  am  going  down  to  the  jetty. 
Yes,  you  had  better  stay  in.  What  an  extraordinary 
thing!" 

It  was  so  extraordinary  that  nobody  could  possibly  ap- 
preciate how  extraordinary  it  was  but  himself.  His  mind 
was  full  of  mere  exclamations,  while  his  feet  were  carry- 
ing him  in  the  direction  of  the  jetty.  He  followed  the  line 
of  the  rails,  escorted  by  Wang. 

"Where  were  you  when  you  first  saw  the  boat?"  he 
asked  over  his  shoulder. 

Wang  explained  in  Malay  that  he  had  gone  to  the  shore 
end  of  the  wharf,  to  get  a  few  lumps  of  coal  from  the  big 
heap,  when,  happening  to  raise  his  eyes  from  the  ground, 
he  saw  the  boat — a  white  man  boat,  not  a  canoe.  He  had 
good  eyes.  He  had  seen  the  boat,  with  the  men  at  the 
oars;  and  here  Wang  made  a  particular  gesture  over  his 
eyes,  as  if  his  vision  had  received  a  blow.  He  had  turned 
at  once  and  run  to  the  house  to  report. 

"No  mistake,  eh?"  said  Heyst,  moving  on.  At  the  very 
outer  edge  of  the  belt  he  stopped  short.  Wang  halted  be- 
hind him  on  the  path,  till  the  voice  of  Number  One  called 
him  sharply  forward  into  the  open.  He  obeyed. 


214  VICTORY 

"Where's  that  boat?"  asked  Heyst  forcibly.  "I  say- 
where  is  it?" 

Nothing  whatever  was  to  be  seen  between  the  point  and 
the  jetty.  The  stretch  of  Diamond  Bay  was  like  a  piece  of 
purple  shadow,  lustrous  and  empty,  while  beyond  the 
land,  the  open  sea  lay  blue  and  opaque  under  the  sun. 
Heyst' s  eyes  swept  all  over  the  offing  till  they  met,  far 
off,  the  dark  cone  of  the  volcano,  with  its  faint  plume  of 
smoke  broadening  and  vanishing  everlastingly  at  the  top, 
without  altering  its  shape  in  the  glowing  transparency  of 
the  evening. 

"The  fellow  has  been  dreaming,"  he  muttered  to  him- 
self. 

He  looked  hard  at  the  Chinaman.  Wang  seemed  turned 
into  stone.  Suddenly,  as  if  he  had  received  a  shock,  he 
started,  flung  his  arm  out  with  a  pointing  forefinger,  and 
made  guttural  noises  to  the  eflFect  that  there,  there,  there, 
he  had  seen  a  boat. 

It  was  very  uncanny.  Heyst  thought  of  some  strange 
hallucination.  Unlikely  enough ;  but  that  a  boat  with  three 
men  in  it  should  have  sunk  between  the  point  and  the 
jetty,  suddenly,  like  a  stone,  without  leaving  as  much  on 
the  surface  as  a  floating  oar,  was  still  more  unlikely.  The 
theory  of  a  phantom  boat  would  have  been  more  credible 
than  that. 

"'Confound  it!"  he  muttered  to  himself. 

He  was  unpleasantly  aflPected  by  this  mystery ;  but  now 
a  simple  explanation  occurred  to  him.  He  stepped  hastily 
out  on  the  wharf.  The  boat,  if  it  had  existed  and  had  re- 
treated, could  perhaps  be  seen  from  the  far  end  of  the 
long  jetty. 

Nothing  was  to  be  seen.  Heyst  let  his  eyes  roam  idly 
over  the  sea.  He  was  so  absorbed  in  his  perplexity  that  a 
hollow  sound,  as  of  somebody  tumbling  about  in  a  boat, 
with  a  clatter  of  oars  and  spars,  failed  to  make  him  move 
for  a  moment.  When  his  mind  seized  its  meaning,  he  had 


VICTORY  215 

no  difficulty  in  locating  the  sound.  It  had  come  from  be- 
low— from  under  the  jetty ! 

He  ran  back  for  a  dozen  yards  or  so,  and  then  looked 
over.  His  sight  plunged  straight  into  the  stern-sheets  of 
a  big  boat,  the  greater  part  of  which  was  hidden  from 
him  by  the  planking  of  the  jetty.  His  eyes  fell  on  the  thin 
back  of  a  man  doubled  up  over  the  tiller  in  a  queer,  un- 
comfortable attitude  of  drooping  sorrow.  Another  man, 
more  directly  below  Heyst,  sprawled  on  his  back  from 
gunwale  to  gunwale,  half  off  the  after  thwart,  his  head 
lower  than  his  feet.  This  second  man  glared  wildly  up- 
ward, and  struggled  to  raise  himself,  but  to  all  appearance 
was  much  too  drunk  to  succeed.  The  visible  part  of  the 
boat  contained  also  a  flat,  leather  trunk,  on  which  the  first 
man's  long  legs  were  tucked  up  nervelessly.  A  large 
earthenware  jar,  with  its  wide  mouth  uncorked,  rolled  out 
on  the  bottom-boards  from  under  the  sprawling  man. 

Heyst  had  never  been  so  much  astonished  in  his  life. 
He  stared  dumbly  at  the  strange  boat's  crew.  From  the 
first  he  was  positive  that  these  men  were  not  sailors.  They 
wore  the  white  drill  suit  of  tropical  civilisation;  but  their 
apparition  in  a  boat  Heyst  could  not  connect  with  any- 
thing plausible.  The  civilisation  of  the  tropics  could  have 
had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  It  was  more  like  those  myths, 
current  in  Polynesia,  of  amazing  strangers,  who  arrive  at 
an  island,  gods  or  demons,  bringing  good  or  evil  to  the 
innocence  of  the  inhabitants — ^gifts  of  unknown  things, 
words  never  heard  before. 

Heyst  noticed  a  cork  helmet  floating  alongside  the  boat, 
evidently  fallen  from  the  head  of  the  man  doubled  over 
the  tiller,  who  displayed  a  dark,  bony  poll.  An  oar,  too, 
had  been  knocked  overboard,  probably  by  the  sprawling 
man,  who  was  still  struggling  between  the  thwarts.  By 
this  time  Heyst  regarded  the  visitation  no  longer  with  sur- 
prise, but  with  the  sustained  attention  demanded  by  a  dif- 
ficult problem.  With  one  foot  posed  on  the  string-piece. 


2i6  VICTORY 

and  leaning  on  his  raised  knee,  he  was  taking  in  every- 
thing. The  sprawHng  man  rolled  off  the  thwart,  collapsed, 
and,  most  unexpectedly,  got  on  his  feet.  He  swayed  diz- 
zily, spreading  his  arms  out,  and  uttered  faintly  a  hoarse, 
dreamy  ''Hallo!"  His  upturned  face  was  swollen,  red, 
peeling  all  over  the  nose  and  cheeks.  His  stare  was  irra- 
tional. Heyst  perceived  stains  of  dried  blood  all  over  the 
front  of  his  dirty  white  coat,  and  also  on  one  sleeve. 

''What's  the  matter?  Are  you  wounded?" 

The  other  glanced  down,  reeled — one  of  his  feet  was 
inside  a  large  pith  hat — and,  recovering  himself,  let  out  a 
dismal,  grating  sound  in  the  manner  of  a  grim  laugh. 

"Blood — not  mine.  Thirst's  the  matter.  Exhausted's  the 
matter.  Done  up.  Drink,  man !  Give  us  water !" 

Thirst  was  in  the  very  tone  of  his  words,  alternating 
a  broken  croak  and  a  faint,  throaty  rustle  which  just 
reached  Heyst's  ears.  The  man  in  the  boat  raised  his  hands 
to  be  helped  up  on  the  jetty,  whispering: 

"I  tried.  I  am  too  weak.  I  tumbled  down." 

Wang  was  coming  along  the  jetty  slowly,  with  intent, 
straining  eyes. 

"Run  back  and  bring  a  crowbar  here.  There's  one  lying 
by  the  coal-heap,"  Heyst  shouted  to  him. 

The  man  standing  in  the  boat  sat  down  on  the  thwart 
behind  him.  A  horrible  coughing  laugh  came  through  his 
swollen  lips. 

"Crowbar?  What's  that  for?"  he  mumbled,  and  his 
head  dropped  on  his  chest  mournfully. 

Meantime  Heyst,  as  if  he  had  forgotten  the  boat, 
started  kicking  hard  at  a  large  brass  tap  projecting  above 
the  planks.  To  accommodate  ships  that  came  for  coal  and 
happened  to  need  water  as  well,  a  stream  had  been  tapped 
in  the  interior  and  an  iron  pipe  led  along  the  jetty.  It  ter- 
minated with  a  curved  end  almost  exactly  where  the  stran- 
gers' boat  had  been  driven  between  the  piles ;  but  the  tap 
was  set  fast. 


VICTORY  217 

"Hurry  up!"  Heyst  yelled  to  the  Chinaman,  who  was 
running  with  the  crowbar  in  his  hand. 

Heyst  snatched  it  from  him  and,  obtaining  a  leverage 
against  the  string-piece,  wrung  the  stiff  tap  round  with  a 
mighty  jerk. 

"I  hope  that  pipe  hasn't  got  choked!"  he  muttered  to 
himself  anxiously. 

It  hadn't ;  but  it  did  not  yield  a  strong  gush.  The  sound 
of  a  thin  stream,  partly  breaking  on  the  gunwale  of  the 
boat  and  partly  splashing  alongside,  became  at  once  audi- 
ble. It  was  greeted  by  a  cry  of  inarticulate  and  savage 
joy.  Heyst  knelt  on  the  string-piece  and  peered  down. 
The  man  who  had  spoken  was  already  holding  his  open 
mouth  under  the  bright  trickle.  Water  ran  over  his  eye- 
lids and  over  his  nose,  gurgled  down  his  throat,  flowed 
over  his  chin.  Then  some  obstruction  in  the  pipe  gave  way, 
and  a  sudden  thick  jet  broke  on  his  face.  In  a  moment  his 
shoulders  were  soaked,  the  front  of  his  coat  inundated; 
he  streamed  and  dripped ;  water  ran  into  his  pockets,  down 
his  legs,  into  his  shoes ;  but  he  had  clutched  the  end  of  the 
pipe,  and,  hanging  on  with  both  hands,  swallowed,  splut- 
tered, choked,  snorted  with  the  noises  of  a  swimmer.  Sud- 
denly a  curious  dull  roar  reached  Heyst's  ears.  Something 
hairy  and  black  flew  from  under  the  jetty.  A  dishevelled 
head,  coming  on  like  a  cannon-ball,  took  the  man  at  the 
pipe  in  flank,  with  enough  force  to  tear  his  grip  loose  and 
fling  him  headlong  into  the  stern-sheets.  He  fell  upon  the 
folded  legs  of  the  man  at  the  tiller,  who,  roused  by  the 
commotion  in  the  boat,  was  sitting  up,  silent,  rigid,  and 
very  much  like  a  corpse.  His  eyes  were  but  two  black 
patches,  and  his  teeth  glistened  with  a  death's  head  grin 
between  his  retracted  lips,  no  thicker  than  blackish  parch- 
ment glued  over  the  gums. 

From  him  Heyst's  eyes  wandered  to  the  creature  who 
had  replaced  the  first  man  at  the  end  of  the  water-pipe. 
Enormous  brown  paws  clutched  it  savagely ;  the  wild,  big 


2i8  VICTORY 

head  hung  back,  and  in  a  face  covered  with  a  wet  mass  of 
hair  there  gaped  crookedly  a  wide  mouth  full  of  fangs. 
The  water  filled  it,  welled  up  in  hoarse  coughs,  ran  down 
on  each  side  of  the  jaws  and  down  the  hairy  throat,  soaked 
the  black  pelt  of  the  enormous  chest,  naked  under  a  torn 
check  shirt,  heaving  convulsively  with  a  play  of  massive 
muscles  carved  in  red  mahogany. 

As  soon  as  the  first  man  had  recovered  the  breath 
knocked  out  of  him  by  the  irresistible  charge,  a  scream  of 
mad  cursing  issued  from  the  stern-sheets.  With  a  rigid, 
angular  crooking  of  the  elbow,  the  man  at  the  tiller  put  his 
hand  back  to  his  hip. 

"Don't  shoot  him,  sir!"  yelled  the  first  man.  "Wait!  Let 
me  have  that  tiller.  I  will  teach  him  to  shove  himself  in 
front  of  a  caballero!'' 

Martin  Ricardo  flourished  the  heavy  piece  of  wood, 
leaped  forward  with  astonishing  vigour,  and  brought  it 
down  on  Pedro's  head  with  a  crash  that  resounded  all 
over  the  quiet  sweep  of  Black  Diamond  Bay.  A  crimson 
patch  appeared  on  the  matted  hair;  red  veins  appeared  in 
the  water  flowing  all  over  his  face,  and  it  dripped  in  rosy 
drops  of¥  his  head.  But  the  man  hung  on.  Not  till  a  sec- 
ond furious  blow  descended  did  the  hairy  paws  let  go 
their  grip  and  the  squirming  body  sink  limply.  Before  it 
could  touch  the  bottom-boards,  a  tremendous  kick  in  the 
ribs  from  Ricardo's  foot  shifted  it  forward  out  of  sight, 
whence  came  the  noise  of  a  heavy  thud,  a  clatter  of  spars, 
and  a  pitiful  grunt.  Ricardo  stooped  to  look  under  the 
jetty. 

"Aha,  dog !  This  will  teach  you  to  keep  back  where  you 
belong,  you  murdering  brute,  you  slaughtering  savage, 
you!  You  infidel,  you  robber  of  churches!  Next  time  I 
will  rip  you  open  from  neck  to  heel,  you  carrion-eater! 
Esclavo  r 

He  backed  a  little  and  straightened  himself  up. 


VICTORY  219 

"I  don't  mean  it  really,"  he  remarked  to  Heyst,  whose 
steady  eyes  met  his  from  above.  He  ran  aft  briskly. 

"Come  along,  sir.  It's  your  turn.  I  oughtn't  to  have 
drunk  first.  'S  truth,  I  forgot  myself!  A  gentleman  like 
you  will  overlook  that,  I  know."  As  he  made  these  apolo- 
gies, Ricardo  extended  his  hand.  "Let  me  steady  you,  sir." 

Slowly  Mr.  Jones  unfolded  himself  in  all  his  slender- 
ness,  rocked,  staggered,  and  caught  Ricardo's  shoulder. 
His  henchman  assisted  him  to  the  pipe,  which  went  on 
gushing  a  clear  stream  of  water,  sparkling  exceedingly 
against  the  black  piles  and  the  gloom  under  the  jetty.     • 

"Catch  hold,  sir,"  Ricardo  advised  solicitously.  "All 
right?" 

He  stepped  back,  and,  while  Mr.  Jones  revelled  in  the 
abundance  of  water,  he  addressed  himself  to  Heyst  with 
a  sort  of  justificatory  speech,  the  tone  of  which,  reflecting 
his  feelings,  partook  of  purring  and  spitting.  They  had 
been  thirty  hours  tugging  at  the  oars,  he  explained,  and 
they  had  been  more  than  forty  hours  without  water,  ex- 
cept that  the  night  before  they  had  licked  the  dew  off  the 
gunwales. 

Ricardo  did  not  explain  to  Heyst  how  it  happened.  At 
that  precise  moment  he  had  no  explanation  ready  for  the 
man  on  the  wharf,  who,  he  guessed,  must  be  wondering 
much  more  at  the  presence  of  his  visitors  than  at  their 
plight. 


VII 

The  explanation  lay  in  the  two  simple  facts  that  the 
light  winds  and  strong  currents  of  the  Java  Sea  had 
drifted  the  boat  about  until  they  partly  lost  their  bear- 
ings; and  that  by  some  extraordinary  mistake  one  of  the 
two  jars  put  into  the  boat  by  Schomberg's  man  contained 
salt  water.  Ricardo  tried  to  put  some  pathos  into  his  tones. 
Pulling  for  thirty  hours  with  eighteen-foot  oars !  And  the 
sun !  Ricardo  relieved  his  feelings  by  cursing  the  sun. 
They  had  felt  their  hearts  and  lungs  shrivel  within  them. 
And  then,  as  if  all  that  hadn't  been  trouble  enough,  he 
complained  bitterly,  he  had  had  to  waste  his  fainting 
strength  in  beating  their  servant  about  the  head  with  a 
stretcher.  The  fool  had  wanted  to  drink  sea  water,  and 
wouldn't  listen  to  reason.  There  was  no  stopping  him 
otherwise.  It  was  better  to  beat  him  into  insensibility  than 
to  have  him  go  crazy  in  the  boat,  and  to  be  obliged  to  shoot 
him.  The  preventive,  administered  with  enough  force  to 
brain  an  elephant,  boasted  Ricardo,  had  to  be  applied  on 
two  occasions — the  second  time  all  but  in  sight  of  the 
jetty. 

"You  have  seen  the  beauty,"  Ricardo  went  on  expan- 
sively, hiding  his  lack  of  some  sort  of  probable  story  under 
this  loquacity.  'T  had  to  hammer  him  away  from  the 
spout.  Opened  afresh  all  the  old  broken  spots  on  his  head. 
You  saw  how  hard  I  had  to  hit.  He  has  no  restraint,  no 
restraint  at  all.  If  it  wasn't  that  he  can  be  made  useful  in 
one  way  or  another,  I  would  just  as  soon  have  let  the 
governor  shoot  him." 

He  smiled  up  at  Heyst  in  his  peculiar  lip-retracting 
manner,  and  added  by  way  of  afterthought: 

220 


1 


VICTORY  221 

"That's  what  will  happen  to  him  in  the  end,  if  he 
doesn't  learn  to  restrain  himself.  But  I've  taught  him  to 
mind  his  manners  for  a  while,  anyhow !" 

And  again  he  addressed  his  quick  grin  up  to  the  man 
on  the  wharf.  His  round  eyes  had  never  left  Heyst's  face 
ever  since  he  began  to  deliver  his  account  of  the  voyage. 

"So  that's  how  he  looks !"  Ricardo  was  saying  to  him- 
self. 

He  had  not  expected  Heyst  to  be  like  this.  He  had 
formed  for  himself  a  conception  containing  the  helpful 
suggestion  of  a  vulnerable  point.  These  solitary  men  were 
often  tipplers.  But  no! — this  was  not  a  drinking  man's 
face;  nor  could  he  detect  the  weakness  of  alarm,  or  even 
the  weakness  of  surprise,  on  these  features,  in  these  steady 
eyes. 

"We  were  too  far  gone  to  climb  out,"  Ricardo  went  on. 
"I  heard  you  walking  along,  though.  I  thought  I  shouted ; 
I  tried  to.  You  didn't  hear  me  shout?" 

Heyst  made  an  almost  imperceptible  negative  sign, 
which  the  greedy  eyes  of  Ricardo — ^greedy  for  all  signs — 
did  not  miss. 

"Throat  too  parched.  We  didn't  even  care  to  whisper 
to  each  other  lately.  Thirst  chokes  one.  We  might  have 
died  there  under  this  wharf  before  you  found  us." 

"I  couldn't  think  where  you  had  gone  to."  Heyst  was 
heard  at  last,  addressing  directly  the  newcomers  from  the 
sea.  "You  were  seen  as  soon  as  you  cleared  that  point." 

"We  were  seen,  eh  ?"  grunted  Mr.  Ricardo.  "We  pulled 
like  machines — daren't  stop.  The  governor  sat  at  the  tiller, 
but  he  couldn't  speak  to  us.  She  drove  in  between  the  piles 
till  she  hit  something,  and  we  all  tumbled  off  the  thwarts 
as  if  we  had  been  drunk.  Drunk — ha,  ha!  Too  dry,  by 
George !  We  fetched  in  here  with  the  very  last  of  our 
strength,  and  no  mistake.  Another  mile  would  have  done 
for  us.  When  I  heard  your  footsteps  above,  I  tried  to  get 
up,  and  I  fell  down." 


222  VICTORY 

"That  was  the  first  sound  I  heard,"  said  Heyst. 

Mr.  Jones,  the  front  of  his  soiled  white  tunic  soaked 
and  plastered  against  his  breast-bone,  staggered  away  from 
the  water-pipe.  Steadying  himself  on  Ricardo's  shoulder, 
he  drew  a  long  breath,  raised  his  dripping  head,  and  pro- 
duced a  smile  of  ghastly  amiability,  which  was  lost  upon 
the  thoughtful  Heyst.  Behind  his  back  the  sun,  touching 
the  water,  was  like  a  disc  of  iron  cooled  to  a  dull  red  glow, 
ready  to  start  rolling  round  the  circular  steel  plate  of  the 
sea,  which,  under  the  darkening  sky,  looked  more  solid 
than  the  high  ridge  of  Samburan;  more  solid  than  the 
point,  whose  long  outlined  slope  melted  into  its  own  un- 
fathomable shadow  blurring  the  dim  sheen  on  the  bay. 
The  forceful  stream  from  the  pipe  broke  like  shattered 
glass  on  the  boat's  gunwale.  Its  loud,  fitful,  and  persistent 
splashing  revealed  the  depth  of  the  world's  silence. 

"Great  notion,  to  lead  the  water  out  here,"  pronounced 
Ricardo  appreciatively. 

Water  was  life.  He  felt  now  as  if  he  could  run  a  mile, 
scale  a  ten-foot  wall,  sing  a  song.  Only  a  few  minutes 
ago  he  was  next  door  to  a  corpse,  done  up,  unable  to 
stand,  to  lift  a  hand ;  unable  to  groan.  A  drop  of  water 
had  done  that  miracle. 

"Didn't  you  feel  life  itself  running  and  soaking  into 
you,  sir?"  he  asked  his  principal,  with  deferential  but 
forced  vivacity. 

Without  a  word,  Mr.  Jones  stepped  off  the  thwart  and 
sat  down  in  the  stern-sheets. 

"Isn't  that  man  of  yours  bleeding  to  death  in  the  bows 
under  there?"  inquired  Heyst. 

Ricardo  ceased  his  ecstasies  over  the  life-giving  water 
and  answered  in  a  tone  of  innocence : 

"He?  You  may  call  him  a  man,  but  his  hide  is  a  jolly 
sight  tougher  than  the  toughest  alligator  he  ever  skinned  in 
the  good  old  days.  You  don't  know  how  much  he  can 
stand :  I  do.  We  have  tried  him  long  time  ago.  Ola,  there! 


VICTORY  223 

Pedro!  Pedro!"  he  yelled,  with  a  force  of  lung  testifying 
to  the  regenerative  virtues  of  water. 

A  weak  "Senorf^  came  from  under  the  wharf. 

"What  did  I  tell  you?"  said  Ricardo  triumphantly. 
"Nothing  can  hurt  him.  He's  all  right.  But,  I  say,  the 
boat's  getting  swamped.  Can't  you  turn  this  water  off  be- 
fore you  sink  her  under  us  ?  She's  half  full  already." 

At  a  sign  from  Heyst,  Wang  hammered  at  the  brass 
tap  on  the  wharf,  then  stood  behind  Number  One,  crow- 
bar in  hand,  motionless  as  before.  Ricardo  was  perhaps 
not  so  certain  of  Pedro's  toughness  as  he  affirmed ;  for  he 
stooped,  peering  under  the  wharf,  then  moved  forward  out 
of  sight.  The  gush  of  water,  ceasing  suddenly,  made  a 
silence  which  became  complete  when  the  after-trickle 
stopped.  Afar,  the  sun  was  reduced  to  a  red  spark,  glow- 
ing very  low  in  the  breathless  immensity  of  twilight.  Pur- 
ple gleams  lingered  on  the  water  all  round  the  boat.  The 
spectral  figure  in  the  stern-sheets  spoke  in  a  languid  tone : 

*'That — er — companion — er — secretary  of  mine  is  a 
queer  chap.  I  am  afraid  we  aren't  presenting  ourselves  in 
a  very  favourable  light." 

Heyst  listened.  It  was  the  conventional  voice  of  an 
educated  man,  only  strangely  lifeless.  But  more  strange 
yet  was  this  concern  for  appearances,  expressed,  he  did 
not  know,  whether  in  jest  or  in  earnest.  Earnestness  was 
hardly  to  be  supposed  under  the  circumstances,  and  no  one 
had  ever  jested  in  such  dead  tones.  It  was  something 
which  could  not  be  answered,  and  Heyst  said  nothing. 
The  other  went  on: 

"Travelling  as  I  do,  I  find  a  man  of  his  sort  extremely 
useful.  He  has  his  little  weaknesses,  no  doubt." 

"Indeed !"  Heyst  was  provoked  into  speaking.  "Weak- 
ness of  the  arm  is  not  one  of  them;  neither  is  an  exag- 
gerated humanity,  as  far  as  I  can  judge."' 

"Defects  of  temper,"  explained  Mr.  Jones  from  the 
stern-sheets. 


224  VICTORY 

The  subject  of  this  dialogue,  coming  out  just  then 
from  under  the  wharf  into  the  visible  part  of  the  boat, 
made  himself  heard  in  his  own  defence,  in  a  voice  full 
of  life,  and  with  nothing  languid  in  his  manner.  On  the 
contrary,  it  was  brisk,  almost  jocose.  He  begged  pardon 
for  contradicting.  He  was  never  out  of  temper  with  "our 
Pedro."  The  fellow  was  a  Dago  of  immense  strength  and 
of  no  sense  whatever.  This  combination  made  him  dan- 
gerous, and  he  had  to  be  treated  accordingly,  in  a  manner 
which  he  could  understand.  Reasoning  was  beyond  him. 

"And  so" — Ricardo  addressed  Heyst  with  animation — 
"you  mustn't  be  surprised  if " 

"I  assure  you,"  Heyst  interrupted,  "that  my  wonder  at 
your  arrival  in  your  boat  here  is  so  great  that  it  leaves  no 
room  for  minor  astonishments.  But  hadn't  you  better 
land?" 

"That's  the  talk,  sir !"  Ricardo  began  to  bustle  about  the 
boat,  talking  all  the  time.  Finding  himself  unable  to  "size 
up"  this  man,  he  was  inclined  to  credit  him  with  extraor- 
dinary powers  of  penetration,  which,  it  seemed  to  him, 
would  be  favoured  by  silence.  Also,  he  feared  some  point- 
blank  question.  He  had  no  ready-made  story  to  tell.  He 
and  his  patron  had  put  off  considering  that  rather  im- 
portant detail  too  long.  For  the  last  two  days,  the  horrors 
of  thirst,  coming  on  them  unexpectedly,  had  prevented 
consultation.  They  had  had  to  pull  for  dear  life.  But  the 
man  on  the  wharf,  were  he  in  league  with  the  devil  him- 
self, would  pay  for  all  their  sufferings,  thought  Ricardo 
with  an  unholy  joy. 

Meantime,  splashing  in  the  water  which  covered  the 
bottom-boards,  Ricardo  congratulated  himself  aloud  on 
the  luggage  being  out  of  the  way  of  the  wet.  He  had 
piled  it  up  forward.  He  had  roughly  tied  up  Pedro's 
head.  Pedro  had  nothing  to  grumble  about.  On  the  con- 
trary, he  ought  to  be  mighty  thankful  to  him,  Ricardo,  for 
being  alive  at  all. 


VICTORY  225 

"Well,  now,  let  me  give  you  a  leg  up,  sir/'  he  said 
cheerily  to  his  motionless  principal  in  the  stern-sheets. 
"All  our  troubles  are  over — for  a  time,  anyhow.  Ain't  it 
luck  to  find  a  white  man  on  this  island?  I  would  have 
just  as  soon  expected  to  meet  an  angel  from  heaven — eh, 
Mr.  Jones?  Now  then — ready,  sir?  One,  two,  three,  up 
you  go !" 

Helped  from  below  by  Ricardo,  and  from  above  by  the 
man  more  unexpected  than  an  angel,  Mr.  Jones  scrambled 
up  and  stood  on  the  wharf  by  the  side  of  Heyst.  He 
swayed  like  a  reed.  The  night  descending  on  Samburan 
turned  into  dense  shadow  the  point  of  land  and  the  wharf 
itself,  and  gave  a  dark  solidity  to  the  unshimmering  water 
extending  to  the  last  faint  trace  of  light  away  to  the  west. 
Heyst  stared  at  the  guests  whom  the  renounced  world  had 
sent  him  thus  at  the  end  of  the  day.  The  only  other  vestige 
of  light  left  on  earth  lurked  in  the  hollows  of  the  thin 
man's  eyes.  They  gleamed,  mobile  and  languidly  evasive. 
The  eyelids  fluttered. 

"You  are  feeling  weak,"  said  Heyst. 

"For  the  moment,  a  little,"  confessed  the  other. 

With  loud  panting,  Ricardo  scrambled  on  his  hands 
and  knees  upon  the  wharf,  energetic  and  unaided.  He 
rose  up  at  Heyst's  elbow  and  stamped  his  foot  on  the 
planks,  with  a  sharp,  provocative,  double  beat,  such  as  is 
heard  sometimes  in  fencing-schools  before  the  adversaries 
engage  their  foils.  Not  that  the  renegade  seaman  Ricardo 
knew  anything  of  fencing.  What  he  called  "shooting- 
irons"  were  his  weapons,  or  the  still  less  aristocratic  knife, 
such  as  was  even  then  ingeniously  strapped  to  his  leg. 
He  thought  of  it,  at  that  moment.  A  swift  stooping  mo- 
tion, then,  on  the  recovery,  a  ripping  blow,  a  shove  off  the 
wharf,  and  no  noise  except  a  splash  in  the  water  that 
would  scarcely  disturb  the  silence.  Heyst  would  have  no 
time  for  a  cry.  It  would  be  quick  and  neat,  and  immensely 
in  accord  with  Ricardo's  humour.  But  he  repressed  this 


826  VICTORY 

gust  of  savagery.  The  job  was  not  such  a  simple  one. 
This  piece  had  to  be  played  to  another  tune,  and  in  much 
slower  time.  He  returned  to  his  note  of  talkative 
simplicity. 

''Ay;  and  I  too  don't  feel  as  strong  as  I  thought  I  was 
when  the  first  drink  set  me  up.  Great  wonder-worker 
water  is!  And  to  get  it  right  here  on  the  spot!  It  was 
heaven — hey,  sir?" 

Mr.  Jones,  being  directly  addressed,  took  up  his  part 
in  the  concerted  piece : 

"Really,  when  I  saw  a  wharf  on  what  might  have  been 
an  uninhabited  island,  I  couldn't  believe  my  eyes.  I 
doubted  its  existence.  I  thought  it  was  a  delusion,  till  the 
boat  actually  drove  between  the  piles,  as  you  see  her  lying 
now." 

While  he  was  speaking  faintly,  in  a  voice  which  did  not 
seem  to  belong  to  the  earth,  his  henchman,  in  extremely 
loud  and  terrestrial  accents,  was  fussing  about  their  be- 
longings in  the  boat,  addressing  himself  to  Pedro : 

"Come,  now — pass  up  the  dunnage  there!  Move  your- 
self, hombre,  or  I'll  have  to  get  down  again  and  give  you 
a  tap  on  those  bandages  of  yours,  you  growling  bear, 
you !" 

"Ah!  You  didn't  believe  in  the  reality  of  the  wharf?" 
Heyst  was  saying  to  Mr.  Jones. 

"You  ought  to  kiss  my  hands !" 

Ricardo  caught  hold  of  an  ancient  Gladstone  bag  and 
swung  it  on  the  wharf  with  a  thump. 

"Yes !  You  ought  to  burn  a  candle  before  me  as  they 
do  before  the  saints  in  your  country.  No  saint  has  ever 
done  so  much  for  you  as  I  have,  you  ungrateful  vagabond. 
Now  then!  Up  you  get." 

Helped  by  the  talkative  Ricardo,  Pedro  scrambled  up 
on  the  wharf,  where  he  remained  for  some  time  on  all 
fours,  swinging  to  and  fro  his  shagg>'  head  tied  up  in 


VICTORY  227 

white  rags.  Then  he  got  up  clumsily,  like  a  bulky  animal 
in  the  dusk,  balancing  itself  on  its  hind  legs. 

Mr.  Jones  began  to  explain  languidly  to  Heyst  that 
they  were  in  a  pretty  bad  state  that  morning,  when  they 
caught  sight  of  the  smoke  of  the  volcano.  It  nerved  them 
to  make  an  effort  for  their  lives.  Soon  afterwards  they 
made  out  the  island. 

"I  had  just  wits  enough  left  in  my  baked  brain  to  alter 
the  direction  of  the  boat,''  the  ghostly  voice  went  on.  "As 
to  finding  asistance,  a  wharf,  a  white  man — nobody  would 
have  dreamed  of  it.  Simply  preposterous !" 

"That's  what  I  thought  when  my  Chinaman  came  and 
told  me  he  had  seen  a  boat  with  white  men  pulling  up," 
said  Heyst. 

"Most  extraordinary  luck,"  interjected  Ricardo,  stand- 
ing by  anxiously  attentive  to  every  word.  "Seems  a 
dream,"  he  added.  "A  lovely  dream!" 

A  silence  fell  on  that  group  of  three,  as  if  every  one 
had  become  afraid  to  speak,  in  an  obscure  sense  of  an 
impending  crisis.  Pedro  on  one  side  of  them  and  Wang 
on  the  other  had  the  air  of  watchful  spectators.  A  few 
stars  had  come  out  pursuing  the  ebbing  twilight.  A  light 
draught  of  air,  tepid  enough  in  the  thickening  twilight 
after  the  scorching  day,  struck  a  chill  into  Mr.  Jones  in 
his  soaked  clothes. 

"I  may  infer,  then,  that  there  is  a  settlement  of  white 
people  here?"  he  murmured,  shivering  visibly. 

Heyst  roused  himself. 

"Oh,  abandoned,  abandoned.  I  am  alone  here — practi- 
cally alone;  but  several  empty  houses  are  still  standing. 
No  lack  of  accommodation.  We  may  just  as  well — here, 
Wang,  go  back  to  the  shore  and  run  the  trolley  out  here." 

The  last  words  having  been  spoken  in  Malay,  he  ex- 
plained courteously  that  he  had  given  directions  for  the 
transport  of  the  luggage.  Wang  had  melted  into  the  night 
in  his  soundless  manner. 


228  VICTORY 

"My  word !  Rails  laid  down  and  all,"  exclaimed  Ricardo 
softly,  in  a  tone  of  admiration.  ''Well,  I  never!" 

"We  were  working  a  coal-mine  here,"  said  the  late  man- 
ager of  the  Tropical  Belt  Coal  Company.  "These  are  only 
the  ghosts  of  things  that  have  been." 

Mr.  Jones's  teeth  were  suddenly  started  chattering  by 
another  faint  puff  of  wind,  a  mere  sigh  from  the  west, 
where  Venus  cast  her  rays  on  the  dark  edge  of  the  hori- 
zon, like  a  bright  lamp  hung  above  the  grave  of  the  sun. 

"We  might  be  moving  on,"  proposed  Heyst.  "The 
Chinaman  and  that — ah — ungrateful  servant  of  yours, 
with  the  broken  head,  can  load  the  things  and  come  along 
after  us." 

The  suggestion  was  accepted  without  words.  Moving 
towards  the  shore,  the  three  men  met  the  trolley,  a  mere 
metallic  rustle  which  whisked  past  them,  the  shadowy 
Wang  running  noiselessly  behind.  Only  the  sound  of  their 
footsteps  accompanied  them.  It  was  a  long  time  since  so 
many  footsteps  had  rung  together  on  that  jetty.  Before 
they  stepped  on  to  the  path  trodden  through  the  grass, 
Heyst  said : 

"I  am  prevented  from  offering  you  a  share  of  my  own 
quarters."  The  distant  courtliness  of  this  beginning  ar- 
rested the  other  two  suddenly,  as  if  amazed  by  some  mani- 
fest incongruity.  "I  should  regret  it  more,"  he  went  on, 
"if  I  were  not  in  a  position  to  give  you  the  choice  of  those 
empty  bungalows  for  a  temporary  home." 

He  turned  round  and  plunged  into  the  narrow  tracks, 
the  two  others  following  in  single  file. 

"Queer  start !"  Ricardo  took  the  opportunity  for  whis- 
pering, as  he  fell  behind  Mr.  Jones,  who  swayed  in  the 
gloom,  enclosed  by  the  stalks  of  tropical  grass,  almost  as 
sknder  as  a  stalk  of  grass  himself. 

In  this  order  they  emerged  into  the  open  space  kept 
clear  of  vegetation  by  Wang's  judicious  system  of  period- 
ical   firing.    The    shapes    of    buildings,    unlighted,    high- 


VICTORY  229 

roofed,  looked  mysteriously  extensive  and  featureless 
against  the  increasing  glitter  of  the  stars.  Heyst  was 
pleased  at  the  absence  of  lights  in  his  bungalow.  It  looked 
as  uninhabited  as  the  others.  He  continued  to  lead  the 
way,  inclining  to  the  right.  His  equable  voice  was  heard. 

"This  one  would  be  the  best.  It  was  our  counting-house. 
There  is  some  furniture  in  it  yet.  I  am  pretty  certain  that 
you'll  find  a  couple  of  camp  bedsteads  in  one  of  the 
rooms." 

The  high-pitched  roof  of  the  bungalow  towered  up 
very  close,  eclipsing  the  sky. 

''Here  we  are.  Three  steps.  As  you  see,  there's  a  wide 
verandah.  Sorry  to  keep  you  waiting  for  a  moment;  the 
door  is  locked,  I  think." 

He  was  heard  trying  it.  Then  he  leaned  against  the 
rail,  saying: 

"Wang  will  get  the  keys." 

The  others  waited,  two  vague  shapes  nearly  mingled 
together  in  the  darkness  of  the  verandah,  from  which 
issued  a  sudden  chattering  of  Mr.  Jones's  teeth,  directly 
suppressed,  and  a  slight  shuffle  of  Ricardo's  feet.  Their 
guide  and  host,  his  back  against  the  rail,  seemed  to  have 
forgotten  their  existence.  Suddenly  he  moved,  and  mur- 
mured : 

"Ah,  here's  the  trolley." 

Then  he  raised  his  voice  in  Malay,  and  was  answered, 
"Fa  tuan/'  from  an  indistinct  group  that  could  be  made 
out  in  the  direction  of  the  track. 

"I  have  sent  Wang  for  the  key  and  a  light,"  he  said, 
in  a  voice  that  came  out  without  any  particular  direction 
— a  peculiarity  which  disconcerted  Ricardo. 

Wang  did  not  tarry  long  on  his  mission.  Very  soon 
from  the  distant  recesses  of  obscurity  appeared  the  swing- 
ing lantern  he  carried.  It  cast  a  fugitive  ray  on  the  ar- 
rested trolley  with  the  uncouth  figure  of  the  wild  Pedro 
drooping  over  the  load ;  then  it  moved  towards  the  bunga- 


230  VICTORY 

low  and  ascended  the  stairs.  After  working  at  the  stiff 
lock,  Wang  applied  his  shoulder  to  the  door.  It  came  open 
with  explosive  suddenness,  as  if  in  a  passion  at  being  thus 
disturbed  after  two  years'  repose.  From  the  dark  slope  of 
a  tall  stand-up  writing-desk  a  forgotten,  solitary  sheet  of 
paper  flew  up  and  settled  gracefully  on  the  floor. 

Wang  and  Pedro  came  and  went  through  the  offended 
door,  bringing  the  things  off  the  trolley,  one  flitting 
swiftly  in  and  out,  the  other  staggering  heavily.  Later, 
directed  by  a  few  quiet  words  from  Number  One,  Wang 
made  several  journeys  with  the  lantern  to  the  storerooms, 
bringing  in  blankets,  provisions  in  tins,  coffee,  sugar,  and 
a  packet  of  candles.  He  lighted  one,  and  stuck  it  on  the 
ledge  of  the  stand-up  desk.  Meantime  Pedro,  being  intro- 
duced to  some  kindling-wood  and  a  bundle  of  dry  sticks, 
had  busied  himself  outside  in  lighting  a  fire,  on  which  he 
placed  a  ready-filled  kettle  handed  to  him  by  Wang  im- 
passively, at  arm's  length,  as  if  across  a  chasm.  Having 
received  the  thanks  of  his  guests,  Heyst  wished  them 
good-night  and  withdrew,  leaving  them  to  their  repose. 


VIII 

Heyst  walked  away  slowly.  There  was  still  no  light  in 
his  bungalow,  and  he  thought  that  perhaps  it  was  just  as 
well.  By  this  time  he  was  much  less  perturbed.  Wang  had 
preceded  him  with  the  lantern,  as  if  in  a  hurry  to  get  away 
from  the  two  white  men  and  their  hairy  attendant.  The 
light  was  not  dancing  along  any  more;  it  was  standing 
perfectly  still  by  the  steps  of  the  verandah. 

Heyst,  glancing  back  casually,  saw  behind  him  still  an- 
other light, — the  light  of  the  strangers'  open  fire.  A  black, 
uncouth  form,  stooping  over  it  monstrously,  staggered 
away  into  the  outlying  shadows.  The  kettle  had  boiled, 
probably. 

With  that  weird  vision  of  something  questionably 
human  impressed  upon  his  senses,  Heyst  moved  on  a  pace 
or  two.  What  could  the  people  be  who  had  such  a  creature 
for  their  familiar  attendant?  He  stopped.  The  vague  ap- 
prehension of  a  distant  future,  in  which  he  saw  Lena 
unavoidably  separated  from  him  by  profound  and  subtle 
differences;  the  sceptical  carelessness  which  had  accom- 
panied every  one  of  his  attempts  at  action,  like  a  secret 
reserve  of  his  soul,  fell  away  from  him.  He  no  longer  be- 
longed to  himself.  There  was  a  call  far  more  imperious 
and  august.  He  came  up  to  the  bungalow,  and,  at  the  very 
limit  of  the  lantern's  light,  on  the  top  step,  he  saw  her 
feet  and  the  bottom  part  of  her  dress.  The  rest  of  her 
person  was  suggested  dimly  as  high  as  her  waist.  She  sat 
on  a  chair,  and  the  gloom  of  the  low  eaves  descended  upon 
her  head  and  shoulders.  She  didn't  stir. 

"You  haven't  gone  to  sleep  here?"  he  asked. 

231 


232  VICTORY 

"Oh,  no!  I  was  waiting  for  you — in  the  dark." 

Heyst,  on  the  top  step,  leaned  against  a  wooden  pillar, 
after  moving  the  lantern  to  one  side. 

''I  have  been  thinking  that  it  is  just  as  well  you  had 
no  light.  But  wasn't  it  dull  for  you  to  sit  in  the  dark?" 

*'I  don't  need  a  light  to  think  of  you."  Her  charming 
voice  gave  a  value  to  this  banal  answer,  which  had  also 
the  merit  of  truth.  Heyst  laughed  a  little,  and  said  that  he 
had  had  a  curious  experience.  She  made  no  remark.  He 
tried  to  figure  to  himself  the  outlines  of  her  easy  pose. 
A  spot  of  dim  light  here  and  there  hinted  at  the  unfailing 
grace  of  attitude  which  was  one  of  her  natural  posses- 
sions. 

She  had  thought  of  him,  but  not  in  connection  with  the 
strangers.  She  had  admired  him  from  the  first;  she  had 
been  attracted  by  his  warm  voice,  his  gentle  eye,  but  she 
had  felt  him  too  wonderfully  difficult  to  know.  He  had 
given  to  life  a  savour,  a  movement,  a  promise  mingled 
with  menaces,  which  she  had  not  suspected  were  to  be 
found  in  it — or,  at  any  rate,  not  by  a  girl  wedded  to  mis- 
ery as  she  was.  She  said  to  herself  that  she  must  not  be 
irritated  because  he  seemed  too  self-contained,  and  as  if 
shut  up  in  a  world  of  his  own.  When  he  took  her  in  his 
arms,  she  felt  that  his  embrace  had  a  great  and  compelling 
force,  that  he  was  moved  deeply,  and  that  perhaps  he 
would  not  get  tired  of  her  so  very  soon.  She  thought  that 
he  had  opened  to  her  the  feehngs  of  delicate  joy,  that  the 
very  uneasiness  he  caused  her  was  delicious  in  its  sadness, 
and  that  she  would  try  to  hold  him  as  long  as  she  could — 
till  her  fainting  arms,  her  sinking  soul,  could  cling  to  him 
no  more. 

"Wang's  not  here,  of  course?"  Heyst  said  suddenly. 
She  answered  as  if  in  her  sleep. 

"He  put  this  light  down  here  without  stopping,  and 
ran." 

"Ran,  did  he?  H'm!  Well,  it's  considerably  later  than 


VICTORY  233 

his  usual  time  to  go  home  to  his  Alfuro  wife;  but  to  be 
seen  running  is  a  sort  of  degradation  for  Wang,  who  has 
mastered  the  art  of  vanishing.  Do  you  think  he  was 
startled  out  of  his  perfection  by  something?" 

"Why  should  he  be  startled  ?" 

Her  voice  remained  dreamy,  a  little  uncertain. 

"I  have  been  startled,"  Heyst  said. 

She  was  not  listening.  The  lantern  at  their  feet  threw 
the  shadows  of  her  face  upward.  Her  eyes  glistened,  as 
if  frfghtened  and  attentive,  above  a  lighted  chin  and  a 
very  white  throat. 

''Upon  my  word,"  mused  Heyst,  "now  that  I  don't  see 
them,  I  can  hardly  believe  that  those  fellows  exist !" 

"And  what  about  me?"  she  asked,  so  swiftly  that  he 
made  a  movement  like  somebody  pounced  upon  from  an 
ambush.  "When  you  don't  see  me,  do  you  believe  that  I 
exist?" 

"Exist?  Most  charmingly!  My  dear  Lena,  you  don't 
know  your  own  advantages.  Why,  your  voice  alone  would 
be  enough  to  make  you  unforgettable!" 

"Oh,  I  didn't  mean  forgetting  in  that  way.  I  dare  say 
if  I  were  to  die  you  would  remember  me  right  enough. 
And  what  good  would  that  be  to  anybody?  It's  while  I 
am  alive  that  I  want " 

Heyst  stood  by  her  chair,  a  stalwart  figure  imperfectly 
lighted.  The  broad  shoulders,  the  martial  face  that  was 
like  a  disguise  of  his  disarmed  soul,  were  lost  in  the  gloom 
above  the  plane  of  light  in  which  his  feet  were  planted. 
He  suffered  from  a  trouble  with  which  she  had  nothing 
to  do.  She  had  no  general  conception  of  the  conditions  of 
the  existence  he  had  offered  to  her.  Drawn  into  its  peculiar 
stagnation  she  remained  unrelated  to  it  because  of  her 
ignorance. 

For  instance,  she  could  never  perceive  the  prodigious 
improbability  of  the  arrival  of  that  boat.  She  did  not  seem 
to  be  thinking  of  it.  Perhaps  she  had  already  forgotten  the 


234 


VICTORY 


fact  herself.  And  Heyst  resolved  suddenly  to  say  nothing 
more  of  it.  It  was  not  that  he  shrank  from  alarming  her. 
Not  feeling  anything  definite  himself  he  could  not  imagine 
a  precise  effect  being  produced  on  her  by  any  amount  of 
explanation.  There  is  a  quality  in  events  which  is  appre- 
hended differently  by  different  minds  or  even  by  the  same 
mind  at  different  times.  Any  man  living  at  all  consciously 
knows  that  embarrassing  truth.  Heyst  was  aware  that  this 
visit  could  bode  nothing  pleasant.  In  his  present  soured 
temper  towards  all  mankind  he  looked  upon  it  as  a  visita- 
tion of  a  particularly  offensive  kind. 

He  glanced  along  the  verandah  in  the  direction  of  the 
other  bungalow.  The  fire  of  sticks  in  front  of  it  had  gone 
out.  No  faint  glow  of  embers,  not  the  slightest  thread  of 
light  in  that  direction,  hinted  at  the  presence  of  strangers. 
The  darker  shapes  in  the  obscurity,  the  dead  silence,  be- 
trayed nothing  of  that  strange  intrusion.  The  peace  of 
Samburan  asserted  itself  as  on  any  other  night.  Every- 
thing was  as  before,  except — Heyst  became  aware  of  it 
suddenly — ^that  for  a  whole  minute,  perhaps,  with  his 
hand  on  the  back  of  the  girl's  chair  and  within  a  foot  of 
her  person,  he  had  lost  the  sense  of  her  existence,  for  the 
first  time  since  he  had  brought  her  over  to  share  this  in- 
vincible, this  undefiled  peace.  He  picked  up  the  lantern, 
and  the  act  made  a  silent  stir  all  along  the  verandah.  A 
spoke  of  shadow  swung  swiftly  across  her  face,  and  the 
strong  light  rested  on  the  immobility  of  her  features,  as 
of  a  woman  looking  at  a  vision.  Her  eyes  were  still,  her 
lips  serious.  Her  dress,  open  at  the  neck,  stirred  slightly 
to  her  even  breathing. 

"We  had  better  go  in,  Lena,"  suggested  Heyst,  very 
low,  as  if  breaking  a  spell  cautiously. 

She  rose  without  a  word.  Heyst  followed  her  indoors. 
As  they  passed  through  the  living-room,  he  left  the  lan- 
tern burning  on  the  centre  table. 


IX 

That  night  the  girl  woke  up,  for  the  first  time  in  her 
new  experience,  with  the  sensation  of  having  been  aban- 
doned to  her  own  devices.  She  woke  up  from  a  painful 
dream  of  separation  brought  about  in  a  way  which  she 
could  not  understand,  and  missed  the  relief  of  the  waking 
instant.  The  desolate  feeling  of  being  alone  persisted.  She 
was  really  alone.  A  night-light  made  it  plain  enough  in  the 
dim,  mysterious  manner  of  a  dream;  but  this  was  reality. 
It  startled  her  exceedingly. 

In  a  moment  she  was  at  the  curtain  that  hung  in  the 
doorway,  and  raised  it  with  a  steady  hand.  The  conditions 
of  their  life  in  Samburan  would  have  made  peeping  ab- 
surd ;  nor  was  such  a  thing  in  her  character.  This  was  not 
a  movement  of  curiosity,  but  of  downright  alarm — ^the 
continued  distress  and  fear  of  the  dream.  The  night  could 
not  have  been  very  far  advanced.  The  light  in  the  lantern 
was  burning  strongly,  striping  the  floor  and  walls  of  the 
room  with  thick  black  bands.  She  hardly  knew  whether 
she  expected  to  see  Heyst  or  not ;  but  she  saw  him  at  once, 
standing  by  the  table  in  his  sleeping-suit,  his  back  to  the 
doorway.  She  stepped  in  noiselessly  with  her  bare  feet, 
and  let  the  curtain  fall  behind  her.  Something  characteris- 
tic in  Heyst's  attitude  made  her  say,  almost  in  a  whisper : 

"You  are  looking  for  something." 

He  could  not  have  heard  her  before ;  but  he  didn't  start 
at  the  unexpected  whisper.  He  only  pushed  the  drawer  of 
the  table  in  and,  without  even  looking  over  his  shoulder, 
asked  quietly,  accepting  her  presence  as  if  he  had  been 
aware  of  all  her  movements: 

235 


236  VICTORY 

"I  say,  are  you  certain  that  Wang  didn't  go  through 
this  room  this  evening?" 

"Wang?  When?" 

"After  leaving  the  lantern,  I  mean." 

"Oh,  no.  He  ran  on.  I  watched  him." 

"Or  before,  perhaps — while  I  was  with  these  boat 
people?  Do  you  know?  Can  you  tell?" 

"I  hardly  think  so.  I  came  out  as  the  sun  went  down, 
and  sat  outside  till  you  came  back  to  me." 

"He  could  have  popped  in  for  an  instant  through  the 
back  verandah." 

"I  heard  nothing  in  here,"  she  said.  "What  is  the  mat- 
ter?" 

"Naturally  you  wouldn't  hear.  He  can  be  as  quiet  as 
a  shadow,  when  he  likes.  I  believe  he  could  steal  the 
pillows  from  under  our  heads.  He  might  have  been  here 
ten  minutes  ago." 

"What  woke  you  up?  Was  it  a  noise?" 

"Can't  say  that.  Generally  one  can't  tell ;  but  is  it  likely, 
Lena?  You  are,  I  believe,  the  lighter  sleeper  of  us  two. 
A  noise  loud  enough  to  wake  me  up  would  have  awakened 
you,  too.  I  tried  to  be  as  quiet  as  I  could.  What  roused 
you?" 

"I  don't  know — a  dream,  perhaps.  I  woke  up  crying." 

"What  was  the  dream?" 

Heyst,  with  one  hand  resting  on  the  table,  had  turned 
in  her  direction,  his  round,  uncovered  head  set  on  a 
fighter's  muscular  neck.  She  left  his  question  unanswered, 
as  if  she  had  not  heard  it. 

"What  is  it  you  have  missed?"  she  asked  in  her  turn, 
very  grave. 

Her  dark  hair,  drawn  smoothly  back,  was  done  in  two 
thick  tresses  for  the  night.  Heyst  noticed  the  good  form 
of  her  brow,  the  dignity  of  its  width,  its  unshining  white- 
ness. It  was  a  sculptural  forehead.  He  had  a  moment  of 
acute    appreciation    intruding    upon    another    order    of 


VICTORY  237 

thoughts.  It  was  as  if  there  could  be  no  end  of  his  discov- 
eries about  that  girl,  at  the  most  incongruous  moments. 

She  had  on  nothing  but  a  hand-woven  cotton  sarong — 
one  of  Heyst's  few  purchases,  years  ago,  in  Celebes,  where 
they  are  made.  He  had  forgotten  all  about  it  till  she  came, 
and  then  had  found  it  at  the  bottom  of  an  old  sandalwood 
trunk  dating  back  to  pre-Morrison  days.  She  had  quickly 
learned  to  wind  it  up  under  her  armpits  with  a  safe  twist, 
as  Malay  village  girls  do  when  going  down  to  bathe  in  a 
river.  Her  shoulders  and  arms  were  bare;  one  of  her 
tresses,  hanging  forward,  looked  almost  black  against  the 
white  skin.  As  she  was  taller  than  the  average  Malay 
woman,  the  sarong  ended  a  good  way  above  her  ankles. 
She  stood  poised  firmly,  halfway  between  the  table  and 
the  curtained  doorway,  the  insteps  of  her  bare  feet  gleam- 
ing like  marble  on  the  over-shadowed  matting  of  the  floor. 
The  fall  of  her  lighted  shoulders,  the  strong  and  fine 
modelling  of  her  arms  hanging  down  her  sides,  her  im- 
mobility, too,  had  something  statuesque,  the  charm  of  art 
tense  with  life.  She  was  not  very  big — Heyst  used  to  think 
of  her,  at  first,  as  "that  poor  little  girF' — ^but  revealed  free 
from  the  shabby  banality  of  a  white  platform  dress,  in 
the  simple  drapery  of  the  sarong,  there  was  that  in  her 
form  and  in  the  proportions  of  her  body  which  suggested 
a  reduction  from  an  heroic  size. 

She  moved  forward  a  step. 

"What  is  it  you  have  missed  ?*'  she  asked  again. 

Heyst  turned  his  back  altogether  on  the  table.  The 
black  spokes  of  darkness  over  the  floor  and  the  walls, 
joining  up  on  the  ceiling  in  a  patch  of  shadow,  were  like 
the  bars  of  a  cage  about  them.  It  was  his  turn  to  ignore 
a  question. 

"You  woke  up  in  a  fright,  you  say?"  he  said. 

She  walked  up  to  him,  exotic  yet  familiar,  with  her 
white  woman's  face  and  shoulders  above  the  Malay  sa 


238  VICTORY 

rong,  as  if  it  were  an  airy  disguise ;  but  her  expression  was 
serious. 

"No!"  she  repHed.  ''It  was  distress,  rather.  You  see, 
you  weren't  there,  and  I  couldn't  tell  why  you  had  gone 
away  from  me.  A  nasty  dream — ^the  first  I've  had,  too, 


since " 


"You  don't  believe  in  dreams,  do  you?"  asked  Heyst. 

"I  once  knew  a  woman  who  did.  Leastwise,  she  used 
to  tell  people  what  dreams  meant,  for  a  shilling." 

"Would  you  go  now  and  ask  her  what  this  dream 
means?"  inquired  Heyst  jocularly. 

"She  lived  in  Camberwell.  She  was  a  nasty  old  thing!" 

Heyst  laughed  a  little  uneasily. 

"Dreams  are  madness,  my  dear.  It's  things  that  happen 
in  the  waking  world,  while  one  is  asleep,  that  one  would 
be  glad  to  know  the  meaning  of." 

"You  have  missed  something  out  of  this  drawer,"  she 
said  positively. 

"This  or  some  other.  I  have  looked  into  every  single 
one  of  them  and  come  back  to  this  again,  as  people  do. 
It's  difficult  to  believe  the  evidence  of  my  own  senses ;  but 
it  isn't  there.  Now,  Lena,  are  you  sure  that  you 
didn't " 

"I  have  touched  nothing  in  the  house  but  what  you  have 
given  me." 

"Lena!"  he  cried. 

He  was  painfully  affected  by  this  disclaimer  of  a  charge 
which  he  had  not  made.  It  was  what  a  servant  might  have 
said — an  inferior  open  to  suspicion — or,  at  any  rate,  a 
stranger.  He  was  angry  at  being  so  wretchedly  misunder- 
stood; disenchanted  at  her  not  being  instinctively  aware 
of  the  place  he  had  secretly  given  her  in  his  thoughts. 

"After  all,"  he  said  to  himself,  "we  are  strangers  to 
each  other." 

And  then  he  felt  sorry  for  her.  He  spoke  calmly: 

"I  was  about  to  say,  are  you  sure  you  have  no  reason 


VICTORY  239 

to  think  that  the  Chinaman  has  been  in  this  room  to- 
night?" 

"You  suspect  him?"  she  asked,  knitting  her  eyebrows. 

"There  is  no  one  else  to  suspect.  You  may  call  it  a  cer- 
titude." 

"You  don't  want  to  tell  me  what  it  is?"  she  inquired, 
in  the  equable  tone  in  which  one  takes  a  fact  into  account. 

Heyst  only  smiled  faintly. 

"Nothing  very  precious,  as  far  as  value  goes,"  he 
replied. 

"I  thought  it  might  have  been  money,"  she  said. 

"Money!"  exclaimed  Heyst,  as  if  the  suggestion  had 
been  altogether  preposterous.  She  was  so  visibly  surprised 
that  he  hastened  to  add :  "Of  course,  there  is  some  money 
in  the  house — ^there,  in  that  writing-desk,  the  drawer  on 
the  left.  It's  not  locked.  You  can  pull  it  right  out.  There 
is  a  recess,  and  the  board  at  the  back  pivots ;  a  very  simple 
hiding-place,  when  you  know  the  way  to  it.  I  discovered 
it  by  accident,  and  I  keep  our  store  of  sovereigns  in  there. 
The  treasure,  my  dear,  is  not  big  enough  to  require  a 


cavern." 


He  paused,  laughed  very  low,  and  returned  her  steady 
stare. 

"The  loose  silver,  some  guilders  and  dollars,  I  have 
always  kept  in  that  unlocked  left  drawer.  I  have  no  doubt 
Wang  knows  what  there  is  in  it ;  but  he  isn't  a  thief,  and 
that's  why  I — no,  Lena,  what  Fve  missed  is  not  gold  or 
jewels ;  and  that's  what  makes  the  fact  interesting — ^which 
the  theft  of  money  cannot  be." 

She  took  a  long  breath,  relieved  to  hear  that  it  was  not 
money.  A  great  curiosity  was  depicted  on  her  face,  but 
she  refrained  from  pressing  him  with  questions.  She  only 
gave  him  one  of  her  deep-gleaming  smiles. 

"It  isn't  me,  so  it  must  be  Wang.  You  ought  to  make 
him  give  it  back  to  you." 

Heyst  said  nothing  to  that  naive  and  practical  sugges- 


240  VICTORY 

tion,  for  the  object  that  he  missed  from  the  drawer  was 
his  revolver. 

It  was  a  heavy  weapon  which  he  had  owned  for  many 
years  and  had  never  used  in  his  Hfe.  Ever  since  the  Lon- 
don furniture  had  arrived  in  Samburan,  it  had  been  repos- 
ing in  the  drawer  of  the  table.  The  real  dangers  of  life,  for 
him,  were  not  those  which  could  be  repelled  by  swords  or 
bullets.  On  the  other  hand,  neither  his  manner  nor  his 
appearance  looked  sufficiently  inoffensive  to  expose  him  to 
light-minded  aggression. 

He  could  not  have  explained  what  had  induced  him  to 
go  to  the  drawer  in  the  middle  of  the  night.  He  had  started 
up  suddenly — which  was  very  unusual  with  him.  He  had 
found  himself  sitting  up  and  extremely  wide  awake  all  at 
once,  with  the  girl  reposing  by  his  side,  lying  with  her  face 
away  from  him,  a  vague,  characteristically  feminine  form 
in  the  dim  light.  She  was  perfectly  still. 

At  that  season  of  the  year  there  were  no  mosquitoes  in 
Samburan,  and  the  sides  of  the  mosquito  net  were  looped 
up.  Heyst  swung  his  feet  to  the  floor,  and  found  himself 
standing  there,  almost  before  he  had  become  aware  of  his 
intention  to  get  up.  Why  he  did  this  he  did  not  know.  He 
didn't  wish  to  wake  her  up,  and  the  slight  creak  of  the 
board  bedstead  had  sounded  very  loud  to  him.  He  turned 
round  apprehensively  and  waited  for  her  to  move;  but 
she  did  not  stir.  While  he  looked  at  her,  he  had  a  vision 
of  himself  lying  there  too,  also  fast  asleep,  and — it  oc- 
curred to  him  for  the  first  time  in  his  life — very  defence- 
less. This  quite  novel  impression  of  the  dangers  of 
slumber  made  him  think  suddenly  of  his  revolver.  He  left 
the  bedroom  with  noiseless  footsteps.  The  lightness  of 
the  curtain  he  had  to  lift  as  he  passed  out,  and  the  outer 
door,  wide  open  on  the  blackness  of  the  verandah — for 
the  roof  eaves  came  down  low,  shutting  out  the  starlight 
— gave  him  a  sense  of  having  been  dangerously  exposed, 
he  could  not  have  said  to  what.  He  pulled  the  drawer 


VICTORY  241 

open.  Its  emptiness  cut  his  train  of  self-communion  short. 
He  murmured  to  the  assertive  fact : 

"Impossible!  Somewhere  else!" 

He  tried  to  remember  where  he  had  put  the  thing;  but 
those  provoked  whispers  of  memory  were  not  encourag- 
ing. Foraging  in  every  receptacle  and  nook  big  enough  to 
contain  a  revolver,  he  came  slowly  to  the  conclusion  that 
it  was  not  in  that  room.  Neither  was  it  in  the  other.  The 
whole  bungalow  consisted  of  the  two  rooms  and  a  pro- 
fuse allowance  of  verandah  all  round.  Heyst  stepped  out 
on  the  verandah. 

''It's  Wang,  beyond  a  doubt,"  he  thought,  staring  into 
the  night.  "He  has  got  hold  of  it  for  some  reason." 

There  was  nothing  to  prevent  that  ghostly  Chinaman 
from  materialising  suddenly  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs,  or 
anywhere,  at  any  moment,  and  toppling  him  over  with  a 
dead  sure  shot.  The  danger  was  so  irremediable  that  it 
was  not  worth  worrying  about,  any  more  than  the  general 
precariousness  of  human  life.  Heyst  speculated  on  this 
added  risk.  How  long  had  he  been  at  the  mercy  of  a 
slender  yellow  finger  on  the  trigger?  That  is,  if  that  was 
the  fellow's  reason  for  purloining  the  revolver. 

"Shoot  and  inherit,"  thought  Heyst.  "Very  simple!" 
Yet  there  was  in  his  mind  a  marked  reluctance  to  regard 
the  domesticated  grower  of  vegetables  in  the  light  of  a 
murderer. 

"No,  it  wasn't  that.  For  Wang  could  have  done  it  any 
time  this  last  twelve  months  or  more." 

Heyst's  mind  had  worked  on  the  assumption  that  Wang 
had  possessed  himself  of  the  revolver  during  his  own 
absence  from  Samburan;  but  at  that  period  of  his  specu- 
lation his  point  of  view  changed.  It  struck  him  with  the 
force  of  manifest  certitude  that  the  revolver  had  been 
taken  only  late  in  the  day,  or  on  that  very  night.  Wang, 

of  course But  why?  So  there  had  been  no  danger  in 

the  past.  It  was  all  ahead. 


242  VICTORY 

"He  has  me  at  his  mercy  now/'  thought  Heyst,  without 
particular  excitement. 

The  sentiment  he  experienced  was  curiosity.  He  forgot 
himself  in  it;  it  was  as  if  he  were  considering  somebody 
else's  strange  predicament.  But  even  that  sort  of  interest 
was  dying  out  when,  looking  to  his  left,  he  saw  the  accus- 
tomed shapes  of  the  other  bungalows  looming  in  the  night, 
and  remembered  the  arrival  of  the  thirsty  company  in  the 
boat.  Wang  would  hardly  risk  such  a  crime  in  the  presence 
of  other  white  men.  It  was  a  peculiar  instance  of  the 
"safety  in  numbers"  principle,  which  somehow  was  not 
much  to  Heyst's  taste. 

He  went  in  gloomily,  and  stood  over  the  empty  drawer 
in  deep  and  unsatisfactory  thought.  He  had  just  made  up 
his  mind  that  he  must  breathe  nothing  of  this  to  the  girl, 
when  he  heard  her  voice  behind  him.  She  had  taken  him 
by  surprise,  but  he  resisted  the  impulse  to  turn  round  at 
once  under  the  impression  that  she  might  read  his  trouble 
in  his  face.  Yes,  she  had  taken  him  by  surprise ;  and  for 
that  reason  the  conversation  which  began  was  not  exactly 
as  he  would  have  conducted  it  if  he  had  been  prepared  for 
her  pointblank  question.  He  ought  to  have  said  at  once: 
"I've  missed  nothing."  It  was  a  deplorable  thing  that  he 
should  have  let  it  come  so  far  as  to  have  her  ask  what  it 
was  he  missed.  He  closed  the  conversation  by  saying 
lightly : 

"It's  an  object  of  very  small  value.  Don't  worry  about 
it — it  isn't  worth  while.  The  best  you  can  do  is  to  go  and 
lie  down  again,  Lena." 

Reluctant  she  turned  away,  and  only  in  the  doorway 
asked : 

"And  you?" 

"I  think  I  shall  smoke  a  cheroot  on  the  verandah.  I 
don't  feel  sleepy  for  the  moment." 

"Well,  don't  be  long." 

He  made  no  answer.  She  saw  him  standing  there,  very 


VICTORY  243 

still,  with  a  frown  on  his  brow,  and  slowly  dropped  the 
curtain. 

Heyst  did  really  light  a  cheroot  before  going  out  again 
on  the  verandah.  He  glanced  up  from  under  the  low  eaveo, 
to  see  by  the  stars  how  the  night  went  on.  It  was  going 
very  slowly.  Why  it  should  have  irked  him  he  did  not 
know ;  for  he  had  nothing  to  expect  from  the  dawn ;  but 
everything  round  him  had  become  unreasonable,  un- 
settled, and  vaguely  urgent,  laying  him  under  an 
obligation,  but  giving  him  no  line  of  action.  He  felt  con- 
temptuously irritated  with  the  situation.  The  outer  world 
had  broken  upon  him;  and  he  did  not  know  what  wrong 
he  had  done  to  bring  this  on  himself,  any  more  than  he 
knew  what  he  had  done  to  provoke  the  horrible  calumny 
about  his  treatment  of  poor  Morrison.  For  he  could  not 
forget  this.  It  had  reached  the  ears  of  one  who  needed  to 
have  the  most  perfect  confidence  in  the  rectitude  of  his 
conduct. 

"And  she  only  half  disbelieves  it,"  he  thought,  with 
hopeless  humiliation. 

This  moral  stab  in  the  back  seemed  to  have  taken  some 
of  his  strength  from  him,  as  a  physical  wound  would  have 
done.  He  had  no  desire  to  do  anything — neither  to  bring 
Wang  to  terms  in  the  matter  of  the  revolver  nor  to  find 
out  from  the  strangers  who  they  were,  and  how  their  pre- 
dicament had  come  about.  He  flung  his  glowing  cigar  away 
into  the  night.  But  Samburan  was  no  longer  a  solitude 
wherein  he  could  indulge  in  all  his  moods.  The  fiery  para- 
bolic trail  the  cast-out  stump  traced  in  the  air  was  seen 
from  another  verandah  at  a  distance  of  some  twenty 
yards.  It  was  noted  as  a  symptom  of  importance  by  an 
observer  with  his  faculties  greedy  for  signs,  and  in  a  state 
of  alertness  tense  enough  almost  to  hear  the  grass  grow. 


X 

The  observer  was  ^Martin  Ricardo.  To  him  life  was  not 
a  matter  of  passive  renunciation,  but  of  a  particularly 
active  warfare.  He  was  not  mistrustful  of  it,  he  was  not 
disgusted  with  it,  still  less  was  he  inclined  to  be  suspicious 
of  its  disenchantments ;  but  he  was  vividly  aware  that  it 
held  many  possibilities  of  failure.  Though  very  far  from 
being  a  pessimist,  he  was  not  a  man  of  foolish  illusions. 
He  did  not  like  failure ;  not  only  because  of  its  unpleas- 
ant and  dangerous  consequences,  but  also  because  of  its 
damaging  effect  upon  his  own  appreciation  of  ]\Iartin 
Ricardo.  And  this  was  a  special  job,  of  his  own  contriving, 
and  of  considerable  novelty.  It  was  not,  so  to  speak,  in 
his  usual  line  of  business — except,  perhaps,  from  a  moral 
standpoint,  about  which  he  was  not  likely  to  trouble  his 
head.  For  these  reasons  IMartin  Ricardo  was  unable  to 
sleep. 

Mr.  Jones,  after  repeated  shivering  fits,  and  after  drink-  i 
ing  much  hot  tea,  had  apparently  fallen  into  deep  slumber. 
He  had  very  peremptorily  discouraged  attempts  at  con- 
versation on  the  part  of  his  faithful  follower.  Ricardo 
listened  to  his  regular  breathing.  It  was  all  very  well  for 
the  governor.  He  looked  upon  it  as  a  sort  of  sport.  A 
gentleman  naturally  would.  But  this  ticklish  and  important 
job  had  to  be  pulled  off  at  all  costs,  both  for  honour  and 
for  safety.  Ricardo  rose  quietly,  and  made  his  way  on  the 
verandah.  He  could  not  lie  still.  He  wanted  to  go  out  for 
air ;  and  he  had  a  feeling  that  by  the  force  of  his  eagerness 
even  the  darkness  and  the  silence  could  be  made  to  yield 
something  to  his  eyes  and  ears. 

244 


VICTORY  245 

He  noted  the  stars,  and  stepped  back  again  into  the 
dense  darkness.  He  resisted  the  growing  impulse  to  go 
out  and  steal  toward  the  other  bungalow.  It  would  have 
been  madness  to  start  prowling  in  the  dark  on  unknown 
ground.  And  for  what  end?  Unless  to  relieve  the  oppres- 
sion. Immobility  lay  on  his  limbs  Hke  a  leaden  garment. 
And  yet  he  was  unwilling  to  give  up.  He  persisted  in  his 
objectless  vigil.  The  man  of  the  island  was  keeping  quiet. 

It  was  at  that  moment  that  Ricardo's  eyes  caught  the 
vanishing  red  trail  of  light  made  by  the  cigar — a  startling 
revelation  of  the  man's  wakefulness.  He  could  not  sup- 
press a  low  ''Hallo !"  and  began  to  sidle  along  towards 
the  door,  with  his  shoulders  rubbing  the  wall.  For  all  he 
knew,  the  man  might  have  been  out  in  front  by  this  time, 
observing  the  verandah.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  after  flinging 
away  the  cheroot,  Heyst  had  gone  indoors  with  the  feeling 
of  a  man  who  gives  up  an  unprofitable  occupation.  But 
Ricardo  fancied  he  could  hear  faint  footfalls  on  the  open 
ground,  and  dodged  quickly  into  the  room.  There  he  drew 
breath,  and  meditated  for  a  while.  His  next  step  was  to 
feel '  for  the  matches  on  the  tall  desk,  and  to  light  the 
candle.  He  had  to  communicate  to  his  governor  views  and 
reflections  of  such  importance  that  it  was  absolutely 
necessary  for  him  to  watch  their  effect  on  the  very  coun- 
tenance of  the  hearer.  At  first  he  had  thought  that  these 
matters  could  have  waited  till  daylight,  but  Heyst's  wake- 
fulness, disclosed  in  that  startling  way,  made  him  feel 
suddenly  certain  that  there  could  be  no  sleep  for  him  that 
night. 

He  said  as  much  to  his  governor.  When  the  little  dag- 
ger-like flame  had  done  its  best  to  dispel  the  darkness,  Mr. 
Jones  was  to  be  seen  reposing  on  a  camp  bedstead,  in  a 
distant  part  of  the  room.  A  railway  rug  concealed  his 
spare  form  up  to  his  very  head,  which  rested  on  the  other 
railway  rug  rolled  up  for  a  pillow.  Ricardo  plumped  him- 
self down  cross-legged  on  the  floor,  very  close  to  the  low 


246  VICTORY 

bedstead;  so  that  Mr.  Jones — who  perhaps  had  not  been 
so  very  profoundly  asleep — on  opening  his  eyes  found 
them  conveniently  levelled  at  the  face  of  his  secretary. 

"Eh?  What  is  it  you  say?  No  sleep  for  you  to-night? 
But  why  can't  you  let  7ne  sleep?  Confound  your  fussi- 
ness !" 

^'Because  that  there  fellow  can't  sleep — that's  why. 
Dash  me  if  he  hasn't  been  doing  a  think  just  now !  What 
business  has  he  to  think  in  the  middle  of  the  night?" 

''How  do  you  know?" 

''He  was  out,  sir — up  in  the  middle  of  the  night.  My 
own  eyes  saw  it." 

"But  how  do  you  know  that  he  was  up  to  think?"  in- 
quired Mr.  Jones.  "It  might  have  been  anything — tooth- 
ache, for  instance.  And  you  may  have  dreamed  it  for  all 
I  know.  Didn't  you  try  to  sleep?" 

"No,  sir.  I  didn't  even  try  to  go  to  sleep." 

Ricardo  informed  his  patron  of  his  vigil  on  the  ve- 
randah, and  of  the  revelation  which  put  an  end  to  it.  He 
concluded  that  a  man  up  with  a  cigar  in  the  middle  of  the 
night  must  be  doing  a  think. 

Mr.  Jones  raised  himself  on  his  elbow.  This  sign  of  in- 
terest comforted  his  faithful  henchman. 

"Seems  to  me  it's  time  we  did  a  little  think  ourselves," 
added  Ricardo,  with  more  assurance.  Long  as  they  had 
been  together  the  moods  of  his  governor  were  still  a 
source  of  anxiety  to  his  simple  soul. 

"You  are  always  making  a  fuss,"  remarked  Mr.  Jones, 
in  a  tolerant  tone. 

"Ay,  but  not  for  nothing,  am  I  ?  You  can't  say  that,  sir. 
Mine  may  not  be  a  gentleman's  way  of  looking  round  a 
thing,  but  it  isn't  a  fool's  way,  either.  You've  admitted 
that  much  yourself  at  odd  times." 

Ricardo  was  growing  warmly  argumentative.  Mr.  Jones 
interrupted  him  without  heat. 


VICTORY  247 

"You  haven't  roused  me  to  talk  about  yourself,  I  pre- 
sume." 

"No,  sir."  Ricardo  remained  silent  for  a  minute,  with 
the  tip  of  his  tongue  caught  between  his  teeth.  "I  don't 
think  I  could  tell  you  anything  about  myself  that  you 
don't  know,"  he  continued.  There  was  a  sort  of  amused 
satisfaction  in  his  tone  which  changed  completely  as  he 
went  on.  "It's  that  man,  over  there,  that's  got  to  be  talked 
over.  I  don't  Hke  him!" 

He  failed  to  observe  the  flicker  of  a  ghastly  smile  on  his 
governor's  lips. 

"Don't  you?"  murmured  Mr.  Jones,  whose  face,  as  he 
reclined  on  his  elbow,  was  on  a  level  with  the  top  of  his 
follower's  head. 

"No,  sir,"  said  Ricardo  emphatically.  The  candle  from 
the  other  side  of  the  room  threw  his  monstrous  black 
shadow  on  the  wall.  "He — I  don't  know  how  to  say  it — 
he  isn't  hearty-like." 

Mr.  Jones  agreed  languidly  in  his  own  manner: 

"He  seems  to  be  a  very  self-possessed  man." 

"Ay,  that's  it.  Self "  Ricardo  choked  with  indigna- 
tion. "I  would  soon  let  out  some  of  his  self-possession 
through  a  hole  between  his  ribs,  if  this  weren't  a  special 
job!" 

Mr.  Jones  had  been  making  his  own  reflections,  for 
he  asked: 

"Do  you  think  he  is  suspicious?" 

"I  don't  see  very  well  what  he  can  be  suspicious  of," 
pondered  Ricardo.  "Yet  there  he  was,  doing  a  think.  And 
what  could  be  the  object  of  it?  What  made  him  get  out  of 
his  bed  in  the  middle  of  the  night?  'Tain't  fleas,  surely.'^ 

"Bad  conscience,  perhaps,"  suggested  Mr.  Jones 
jocularly. 

His  faithful  secretary  suffered  from  irritation,  and  did 
not  see  the  joke.  In  a  fretful  tone  he  declared  that  therci 


248  VICTORY 

was  no  such  thing  as  conscience.  There  was  such  a  thing 
as  funk ;  but  there  was  nothing  to  make  that  fellow  funky 
in  any  special  way.  He  admitted,  however,  that  the  man 
might  have  been  uneasy  at  the  arrival  of  strangers,  be- 
cause of  all  that  plunder  of  his  put  away  somewhere. 

Ricardo  glanced  here  and  there,  as  if  he  were  afraid 
of  being  overheard  by  the  heavy  shadows  cast  by  the  dim 
light  all  over  the  room.  His  patron,  very  quiet,  spoke  in 
a  calm  whisper : 

"And  perhaps  that  hotel-keeper  has  been  lying  to  you 
about  him.  He  may  be  a  very  poor  devil  indeed." 

Ricardo  shook  his  head  slightly.  The  Schombergian 
theory  of  Heyst  had  become  in  him  a  profound  convic- 
tion, which  he  had  absorbed  as  naturally  as  a  sponge  takes 
up  water.  His  patron's  doubts  were  a  wanton  denying  of 
what  was  self-evident;  but  Ricardo's  voice  remained  as 
before,  a  soft  purring  with  a  snarling  undertone. 

"I  am  sup-prised  at  you,  sir!  It's  the  very  way  them 
tame  ones — the  common  'yporcrits  of  the  world — get  on. 
When  it  comes  to  plunder  drifting  under  one's  very  nose, 
there's  not  one  of  them  that  would  keep  his  hands  off. 
And  I  don't  blame  them.  It's  the  way  they  do  it  that  sets 
my  back  up.  Just  look  at  the  story  of  how  he  got  rid  of 
that  pal  of  his !  Send  a  man  home  to  croak  of  a  cold  on 
the  chest — that's  one  of  your  tame  tricks.  And  d'you 
mean  to  say,  sir,  that  a  man  that's  up  to  it  wouldn't  bag^ 
whatever  he  could  lay  his  hands  on  in  his  'yporcritical 
way?  What  was  all  that  coal  business?  Tame  citizen 
dodge ;  'yporcrisy — nothing  else.  No,  no,  sir !  The  thing  is 
to  'xtract  it  from  him  as  neatly  as  possible.  That's  the  job ; 
and  it  isn't  so  simple  as  it  looks.  I  reckon  you  have  looked 
at  it  all  round,  sir,  before  you  took  up  the  notion  of  this 
trip." 

"No."  Mr.  Jones  was  hardly  audible,  staring  far  away 
from  his  couch.  ""T  didn't  think  about  it  much.  I  was 
bored." 


VICTORY  249 

"Ay,  that  you  were — bad.  I  was  feeling  pretty  desper- 
ate that  afternoon  when  that  bearded  softy  of  a  landlord 
got  talking  to  me  about  this  fellow  here.  Quite  acciden- 
tally, it  was.  Well,  sir,  here  we  are  after  a  mighty  narrow 
squeak.  I  feel  all  limp  yet ;  but  never  mind — his  swag  will 
pay  for  the  lot!" 

"He's  all  alone  here,"  remarked  Mr.  Jones  in  a  hollow 
murmur. 

"Ye-es,  in  a  way.  Yes,  alone  enough.  Yes,  you  may  say 
he  is." 

"There's  that  Chinaman,  though." 

"Ay,  there's  the  Chink,"  assented  Ricardo  rather 
absentmindedly. 

He  was  debating  in  his  mind  the  advisability  of  making 
a  clean  breast  of  his  knowledge  of  the  girl's  existence. 
Finally  he  concluded  he  wouldn't.  The  enterprise  was 
difficult  enough  without  complicating  it  with  an  upset  to 
the  sensibilities  of  the  gentleman  with  whom  he  had  the 
honour  of  being  associated.  Let  the  discovery  come  of 
itself,  he  thought,  and  then  he  could  swear  that  he  had 
known  nothing  of  that  offensive  presence. 

He  did  not  need  to  lie.  He  had  only  to  hold  his  tongue. 

"Yes,"  he  muttered  reflectively,  "there's  that  Chink, 
certainly." 

At  bottom,  he  felt  a  certain  ambiguous  respect  for  his 
governor's  exaggerated  dislike  of  women,  as  if  that  horror 
of  feminine  presence  were  a  sort  of  depraved  morality; 
but  still  morality,  since  he  counted  it  as  an  advantage. 
It  prevented  many  undesirable  complications.  He  did  not 
pretend  to  understand  it.  He  did  not  even  try  to  investigate 
this  idiosyncrasy  of  his  chief.  All  he  knew  was  that  he 
himself  was  differently  inclined,  and  that  it  did  not  make 
him  any  happier  or  safer.  He  did  not  know  how  it  would 
have  acted  if  he  had  been  knocking  about  the  world  on 
his  own.  Luckily  he  was  a  subordinate,  not  a  wage-slave 
but  a  follower —  which  was  a  restraint.  Yes !  The  other 


250  VICTORY 

sort  of  disposition  simplified  matters  in  general;  it  wasn't 
to  be  gainsaid.  But  it  was  clear  that  it  could  also  compli- 
cate them — as  in  this  most  important  and,  in  Ricardo's 
view,  already  sufficiently  delicate  case.  And  the  worst  of 
it  was  that  one  could  not  tell  exactly  in  what  precise  man- 
ner it  would  act. 

It  was  unnatural,  he  thought  somewhat  peevishly.  How 
was  one  to  reckon  up  the  unnatural?  There  were  no  rules 
for  that.  The  faithful  henchman  of  plain  Mr.  Jones,  fore- 
seeing many  difficulties  of  a  material  order,  decided  to 
keep  the  girl  out  of  the  governor's  knowledge;  out  of  his 
sight,  too,  for  as  long  a  time  as  it  could  be  managed.  That, 
alas,  seemed  to  be  at  most  a  matter  of  a  few  hours ; 
whereas  Ricardo  feared  that  to  get  the  affair  properly 
going  would  take  some  days.  Once  well  started,  he  was 
not  afraid  of  his  gentleman  failing  him.  As  is  often  the 
case  with  lawless  natures,  Ricardo's  faith  in  any  given 
individual  was  of  a  simple,  unquestioning  character.  For 
man  must  have  some  support  in  life. 

Cross-legged,  his  head  drooping  a  little  and  perfectly 
still,  he  might  have  been  meditating  in  a  bonze-like  atti- 
tude upon  the  sacred  syllable  "Om."  It  was  a  striking 
illustration  of  the  untruth  of  appearances,  for  his  con- 
tempt for  the  world  was  of  a  severely  practical  kind. 
There  was  nothing  oriental  about  Ricardo  but  the  amaz- 
ing quietness  of  his  pose.  Mr.  Jones  was  also  very  quiet. 
He  had  let  his  head  sink  on  the  roUed-up  rug,  and  lay 
stretched  out  on  his  side  with  his  back  to  the  light.  In  that 
position  the  shadows  gathered  in  the  cavities  of  his  eyes 
made  them  look  perfectly  empty.  When  he  spoke,  his 
ghostly  voice  had  only  to  travel  a  few  inches  straight  into 
Ricardo's  left  ear. 

*'Why  don't  you  say  something,  now  that  you've  got 
me  awake?" 

"I  wonder  if  you  were  sleeping  as  sound  as  you  are 
trying  to  make  out,  sir,"  said  the  unmoved  Ricardo. 


VICTORY  251 

"I  wonder,"  repeated  Mr.  Jones.  "At  any  rate,  I  was 
resting  quietly." 

"Come,  sir!"  Ricardo's  whisper  was  alarmed.  "You 
don't  mean  to  say  you're  going  to  be  bored?" 

"No." 

"Quite  right!"  The  secretary  was  very  much  relieved. 
"There's  no  occasion  to  be,  I  can  tell  you,  sir,"  he  whis- 
pered earnestly.  "Anything  but  that!  If  I  didn't  say  any- 
thing for  a  bit,  it  ain't  because  there  isn't  plenty  to  talk 
about.  Ay,  more  than  enough." 

"What's  the  matter  with  you  ?"  breathed  out  his  patron. 
"Are  you  going  to  turn  pessimist?" 

"Me  turn?  No,  sir!  I  ain't  of  those  that  turn.  You  may 
call  me  hard  names,  if  you  like,  but  you  know  very  well 
that  I  ain't  a  croaker."  Ricardo  changed  his  tone.  "If  I 
said  nothing  for  a  while,  it  was  because  I  was  meditating 
over  the  Chink,  sir." 

"You  were  ?  Waste  of  time,  my  Martin.  A  Chinaman  is 
unfathomable." 

Ricardo  admitted  that  this  might  be  so.  Anyhow,  a 
Chink  was  neither  here  nor  there,  as  a  general  thing,  un- 
fathomable as  he  might  be ;  but  a  Swedish  baron  wasn't — 
couldn't  be!  The  woods  were  full  of  such  barons. 

"I  don't  know  that  he  is  so  tame,"  was  Mr.  Jones's  re- 
mark, in  a  sepulchral  undertone. 

"How  do  you  mean,  sir?  He  ain't  a  rabbit,  of  course. 
You  couldn't  hypnotise  him,  as  I  saw  you  do  to  more  than 
one  Dago,  and  other  kinds  of  tame  citizens,  when  it  came 
to  the  point  of  holding  them  down  to  a  game." 

"Don't  you  reckon  on  that,"  murmured  plain  Mr.  Jones 
seriously. 

"No,  sir,  I  don't ;  though  you  have  a  wonderful  power 
of  the  eye.  It's  a  fact." 

"I  have  a  wonderful  patience,"  remarked  Mr.  Jones 
drily. 


252  VICTORY 

A  dim  smile  flitted  over  the  lips  of  the  faithful  Ricardo 
who  never  raised  his  head. 

"I  don't  want  to  try  you  too  much,  sir ;  but  this  is  like 
no  other  job  we  ever  turned  our  minds  to." 

^'Perhaps  not.  At  any  rate  let  us  think  so." 

A  weariness  with  the  monotony  of  life  was  reflected  in 
the  tone  of  this  qualified  assent.  It  jarred  on  the  nerves 
of  the  sanguine  Ricardo. 

"Let  us  think  of  the  way  to  go  to  work,"  he  retorted 
a  little  impatiently.  ''He's  a  deep  one.  Just  look  at  the  way 
he  treated  that  chum  of  his.  Did  you  ever  hear  of  anything 
so  low?  And  the  artfulness  of  the  beast — ^the  dirty,  tame 
artfulness !" 

"Don't  you  start  moralising,  Martin,"  said  Mr.  Jones 
warningly.  "As  far  as  I  can  make  out  the  story  that  Ger- 
man hotel-keeper  told  you,  it  seems  to  show  a  certain 
amount  of  character;  and  independence  from  common 
feelings  which  is  not  usual.  It's  very  remarkable,  if  true." 

"Ay,  ay!  Very  remarkable.  It's  mighty  low  down,  all 
the  same,"  muttered  Ricardo  obstinately.  "I  must  say  I 
am  glad  to  think  he  will  be  paid  off  for  it  in  a  way  that'll 
surprise  him !" 

The  tip  of  his  tongue  appeared  lively  for  an  instant,  as 
if  trying  for  the  taste  of  that  ferocious  retribution  on  his 
compressed  lips.  For  Ricardo  was  sincere  in  his  indigna- 
tion before  the  elementary  principle  of  loyalty  to  a  chum 
violated  in  cold  blood,  slowly,  in  a  patient  duplicity  of 
years.  There  are  standards  in  villainy  as  in  virtue,  and  the 
act  as  he  pictured  it  to  himself  acquired  an  additional 
horror  from  the  slow  pace  of  that  treachery  so  atrocious 
and  so  tame.  But  he  understood  too  the  educated  judg- 
ment of  his  governor,  a  gentleman  looking  on  all  this  with 
the  privileged  detachment  of  a  cultivated  mind,  of  an 
-elevated  personality. 

"Ay,  he's  deep — he's  artful,"  he  mumbled  between  his 
sharp  teeth. 


VICTORY  253 

"Confound  you!"  Mr.  Jones's  calm  whisper  crept  into 
his  ear.  "Come  to  the  point." 

Obedient,  the  secretary  shook  off  his  thoughtfulness. 
There  was  a  similarity  of  mind  between  these  two — one 
the  outcast  of  his  vices,  the  other  inspired  by  a  spirit  of 
scornful  defiance,  the  aggressiveness  of  a  beast  of  prey 
looking  upon  all  the  tame  creatures  of  the  earth  as  its 
natural  victims.  Both  were  astute  enough,  however,  and 
both  were  aware  that  they  had  plunged  into  this  adventure 
without  a  sufficient  scrutiny  of  detail.  The  figure  of  a 
lonely  man  far  from  all  assistance  had  loomed  up  largely, 
fascinating  and  defenceless  in  the  middle  of  the  sea,  filling 
the  whole  field  of  their  vision.  There  had  not  seemed  to 
be  any  neeld  for  thinking.  As  Schomberg  had  been  saying : 
"Three  to  one." 

But  it  did  not  look  so  simple  now  in  the  face  of  that 
solitude  which  was  like  an  armour  for  this  man.  The  feel- 
ing voiced  by  the  henchman  in  his  own  way — "We  don't 
seem  much  forwarder  now  we  are  here" — ^was  acknowl- 
edged by  the  silence  of  the  patron.  It  was  easy  enough  to 
rip  a  fellow  up  or  drill  a  hole  in  him,  whether  he  was  alone 
or  not,  Ricardo  reflected  in  low,  confidential  tones, 
but 

"He  isn't  alone,"  Mr.  Jones  said  faintly,  in  his  attitude 
of  a  man  composed  for  sleep.  "Don't  forget  that  China- 
man." Ricardo  started  slightly. 

"Oh,  ay— the  Chink !" 

Ricardo  had  been  on  the  point  of  confessing  about  the 
girl;  but  no!  He  wanted  his  governor  to  be  unperturbed 
and  steady.  Vague  thoughts,  which  he  hardly  dared  to  look 
in  the  face,  were  stirring  in  his  brain  in  connection  with 
that  girl.  She  couldn't  be  much  account,  he  thought.  She 
could  be  frightened.  And  there  were  also  other  possibili- 
ties. The  Chink,  however,  could  be  considered  openly. 

"What  I  was  thinking  about  it,  sir,"  he  went  on  ear- 
nestly, "is  this — ^here  we've  got  a  man.  He's  nothing.  If 


254  VICTORY 

he  won't  be  good,  he  can  be  made  quiet.  That's  easy.  But 
then  there's  his  plunder.  He  doesn't  carry  it  in  his  pocket." 

''I  hope  not,"  breathed  Mr.  Jones. 

"Same  here.  It's  too  big,  we  know ;  but  if  he  were  alone, 
he  would  not  feel  worried  about  it  overmuch — I  mean  the 
safety  of  the  pieces.  He  would  just  put  the  lot  into  any 
box  or  drawer  that  was  handy." 

"Would  he?" 

"Yes,  sir.  He  would  keep  it  under  his  eye,  as  it  were. 
Why  not?  It  is  natural.  A  fellow  doesn't  put  his  swag 
underground,  unless  there's  a  very  good  reason  for  it." 

"A  very  good  reason,  eh  ?" 

''Yes,  sir.  What  do  you  think  a  fellow  is — a  mole?" 

From  his  experience,  Ricardo  declared  that  man  was 
not  a  burrowing  beast.  Even  the  misers  very  seldom 
buried  their  hoard,  unless  for  exceptional  reasons.  In  the 
given  situation  of  a  man  alone  on  an  island,  the  company 
of  a  Chink  was  a  very  good  reason.  Drawers  would  not  be 
safe,  nor  boxes,  either,  from  a  prying,  slant-eyed  Chink. 
No,  sir;  unless  a  safe — a  proper  office  safe.  But  the  safe 
was  there  in  the  room. 

"Is  there  a  safe  in  this  room?  I  didn't  notice  it,"  whis- 
pered Mr.  Jones. 

That  was  because  the  thing  was  painted  white,  like  the 
walls  of  the  room ;  and  besides,  it  was  tucked  away  in  the 
shadows  of  a  corner.  Mr.  Jones  had  been  too  tired  to 
observe  anything  on  his  first  coming  ashore;  but  Ricardo 
had  very  soon  spotted  the  characteristic  form.  He  only 
wished  he  could  believe  that  the  plunder  of  treachery, 
duplicity,  and  all  the  moral  abominations  of  Heyst  had 
been  there.  But  no ;  the  blamed  thing  was  open. 

"It  might  have  been  there  at  one  time  or  another,"  he 
commented  gloomily,  "but  it  isn't  there  now." 

"The  man  did  not  elect  to  live  in  this  house,"  remarked 
Mr.  Jones.  "And  by  the  by,  what  could  he  have  meant  by 
speaking  of  circumstances  which  prevented  him  lodging 


VICTORY  2SS 

lis  in  the  other  bungalow?  You  remember  what  he  said, 
Martin?  Sounded  cryptic." 

Martin,  who  remembered  and  understood  the  phrase  as 
directly  motived  by  the  existence  of  the  girl,  waited  a 
little  before  saying: 

"Some  of  his  artfulness,  sir;  and  not  the  worst  of  it 
either.  That  manner  of  his  to  us,  this  asking  no  questions, 
is  some  more  of  his  artfulness.  A  man's  bound  to  be 
curious,  and  he  is ;  yet  he  goes  on  as  if  he  didn't  care.  He 
does  care — or  else  what  was  he  doing  up  with  a  cigar  in 
the  middle  of  the  night,  doing  a  think?  I  don't  like  it!" 

"He  may  be  outside,  observing  the  light  here,  and  say- 
ing the  very  same  thing  to  himself  of  our  own  wakeful- 
ness," gravely  suggested  Ricardo's  governor. 

"He  may  be,  sir;  but  this  is  too  important  to  be  talked 
over  in  the  dark.  And  the  light  is  all  right.  It  can  be 
accounted  for.  There's  a  light  in  this  bungalow  in  the 
middle  of  the  night  because — why,  because  you  are  not 
well.  Not  well,  sir — ^that's  what's  the  matter ;  and  you  will 
have  to  act  up  to  it." 

This  consideration  had  suddenly  occurred  to  the  faith- 
ful henchman,  in  the  light  of  a  felicitous  expedient  to 
keep  his  governor  and  the  girl  apart  as  long  as  possible. 
Mr.  Jones  received  the  suggestion  without  the  slightest 
stir,  even  in  the  deep  sockets  of  his  eyes,  where  a  steady, 
faint  gleam  was  the  only  thing  telling  of  life  and  attention 
in  his  attenuated  body.  But  Ricardo,  as  soon  as  he  had 
enunciated  his  happy  thought,  perceived  in  it  other  pos- 
sibilities more  to  the  point  and  of  greater  practical  advan- 
tage. 

"With  your  looks,  sir,  it  will  be  easy  enough,"  he  went 
on  evenly,  as  if  no  silence  had  intervened,  always  respect- 
ful, but  frank,  with  perfect  simplicity  of  purpose.  "All 
you've  got  to  do  is  just  to  lie  down  quietly.  I  noticed  him, 
looking  sort  of  surprised  at  you  on  the  wharf,  sir." 

At  these  words,  a  naive  tribute  to  the  aspect  of  his 


256  VICTORY 

physique,  even  more  suggestive  of  the  grave  than  of  the 
sick-bed,  a  fold  appeared  on  that  side  of  the  governor's 
face  v^hich  was  exposed  to  the  dim  Hght — a  deep, 
shadowy,  semicircular  fold  from  the  side  of  the  nose  to 
bottom  of  the  chin — a  silent  smile.  By  a  side  glance  Ri- 
cardo  had  noted  this  play  of  feature.  He  smiled,  too, 
appreciative,  encouraged. 

*'And  you  as  hard  as  nails  all  the  time,"  he  went  on. 
"Hang  me  if  anybody  would  believe  you  aren't  sick,  if 
I  were  to  swear  myself  black  in  the  face !  Give  us  a  day 
or  two  to  look  into  matters  and  size  up  that  'yporcrit." 

Ricardo's  eyes  remained  fixed  on  his  crossed  shins.  The 
chief,  in  his  lifeless  accents,  approved.   . 

'Terhaps  it  would  be  a  good  idea." 

'*'The  Chink,  he's  nothing.  He  can  be  made  quiet  any 
time." 

One  of  Ricardo's  hands,  reposing  palm  upwards  on  his 
folded  legs,  made  a  swift  thrusting  gesture,  repeated  by 
the  enormous  darting  shadow  of  an  arm  very  low  on  the 
wall.  It  broke  the  spell  of  perfect  stillness  in  the  room. 
The  secretary  eyed  moodily  the  wall  from  which  the 
shadow  had  gone.  Anybody  could  be  made  quiet,  he 
pointed  out.  It  was  not  anything  that  the  Chink  could 
do ;  no,  it  was  the  eflFect  that  his  company  must  have  pro- 
duced on  the  conduct  of  the  doomed  man.  A  man !  What 
was  a  man?  A  Swedish  baron  could  be  ripped  up,  or  else 
holed  by  a  shot,  as  easily  as  any  other  creature;  but  that 
was  exactly  what  was  to  be  avoided,  till  one  knew  where 
he  had  hidden  his  plunder. 

"I  shouldn't  think  it  would  be  some  sort  of  hole  in  his 
bungalow,"  argued  Ricardo  with  real  anxiety. 

No.  A  house  can  be  burnt — set  on  fire  accidentally,  or 
on  purpose,  while  a  man's  asleep.  Under  the  house — or 
in  some  crack,  cranny,  or  crevice?  Something  told  him  it 
wasn't   that.    The    anguish   of    mental    effort    contracted 


VICTORY  257 

Ricardo's  brow.  The  skin  of  his  head  seemed  to  move  in 
this  travail  of  vain  and  tormenting  suppositions. 

"What  did  you  think  a  fellow  is,  sir — a  baby?"  he  said, 
in  answer  to  Mr.  Jones's  objections.  "I  am  trying  to  find 
out  what  I  would  do  myself.  He  wouldn't  be  likely  to  be 
cleverer  than  I  am." 

"And  what  do  you  know  about  yourself  ?" 

Mr.  Jones  seemed  to  watch  his  follower's  perplexities 
with  amusement  concealed  in  a  death-like  composure. 

Ricardo  disregarded  the  question.  The  material  vision 
of  the  spoil  absorbed  all  his  faculties.  A  great  vision !  He 
seemed  to  see  it.  A  few  small  canvas  bags  tied  up  with  thin 
cord,  their  distended  rotundity  showing  the  inside  pres- 
sure of  the  disk-like  forms  of  coins —  gold,  solid,  heavy, 
eminently  portable.  Perhaps  steel  cash-boxes  with  a  chased 
design  on  the  covers;  or  perhaps  a  black  and  brass  box 
with  a  handle  on  the  top,  and  full  of  goodness  knows 
what.  Bank  notes?  Why  not?  The  fellow  had  been  going 
home ;  so  it  was  surely  something  worth  going  home  with. 

"And  he  may  have  put  it  anywhere  outside — any- 
where!" cried  Ricardo  in  a  deadened  voice.  "In  the 
forest " 

That  was  it!  A  temporary  darkness  replaced  the  dim 
light  of  the  room.  The  darkness  of  the  forest  at  night,  and 
in  it  the  gleam  of  a  lantern,  by  which  a  figure  is  digging 
at  the  foot  of  a  tree-trunk.  As  likely  as  not,  another  figure 
holding  that  lantern — ha,   feminine !   The  girl ! 

The  prudent  Ricardo  stifled  a  picturesque  and  profane 
exclamation,  partly  joy,  partly  dismay.  Had  the  girl  been 
trusted  or  mistrusted  by  that  man?  Whatever  it  was,  it 
was  bound  to  be  wholly!  With  women  there  could  be  no 
half -measures.  He  could  not  imagine  a  fellow  half -trust- 
ing a  woman  in  that  intimate  relation  to  himself,  and  in 
those  particular  circumstances  of  conquest  and  loneliness 
where  no  confidences  could  appear  dangerous  since,  appar- 
ently, there  could  be  no  one  she  could  give  him  away  to. 


258  VICTORY 

Moreover  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  the  woman  would  be 
trusted.  But,  trusted  or  mistrusted,  was  her  presence  a 
favourable  or  unfavourable  condition  of  the  problem? 
That  was  the  question ! 

The  temptation  to  consult  his  chief,  to  talk  over  the 
weighty  fact  and  get  his  opinion  on  it,  was  great  indeed. 
Ricardo  resisted  it;  but  the  agony  of  his  solitary  mental 
conflict  was  extremely  sharp.  A  woman  in  a  problem  is 
an  incalculable  quantity,  even  if  you  have  something  to  go 
upon  in  forming  your  guess.  How  much  more  so  when 
you  haven't  even  once  caught  sight  of  her. 

Swift  as  were  his  mental  processes,  he  felt  that  a  longer 
silence  was  inadvisable.  He  hastened  to  speak: 

''And  do  you  see  us,  sir,  you  and  I,  with  a  couple  of 
spades  having  to  tackle  this  whole  confounded  island?" 

He  allowed  himself  a  slight  movement  of  the  arm.  The 
shadow  enlarged  it  into  a  sweeping  gesture. 

'This  seems  rather  discouraging,  Alartin,"  murmured 
the  unmoved  governor. 

"We  mustn't  be  discouraged — ^that's  all,"  retorted  his 
henchman.  "And  after  what  we  had  to  go  through  in  that 
boat  too !  Why  it  would  be " 

He  couldn't  find  the  qualifying  words.  \^ery  calm, 
faithful,  and  yet  astute,  he  expressed  his  new-born  hopes 
darkly. 

"Something's  sure  to  turn  up  to  give  us  a  hint;  only 
this  job  can't  be  rushed.  You  may  depend  on  me  to  pick 
up  the  least  little  bit  of  a  hint;  but  you.  sir — you've  got 
to  play  him  very  gently.  For  the  rest  you  can  trust  me.'* 

"Yes ;  but  I  ask  myself  what  you  are  trusting  to." 

"Our  luck,"  said  the  faithful  Ricardo.  "Don't  say  a 
word  against  that.  It  might  spoil  the  run  of  it." 

"You  are  a  superstitious  beggar.  No,  I  won't  say  any- 
thing against  it." 

"That's  right,  sir.  Don't  you  even  think  lightly  of  it. 
Luck's  not  to  be  played  with." 


VICTORY  259 

"Yes,  luck's  a  delicate  thing,"  assented  Mr.  Jones  in  a 
dreamy  whisper. 

A  short  silence  ensued,  which  Ricardo  ended  in  a  dis- 
creet and  tentative  voice. 

"Talking  of  luck,  I  suppose  he  could  be  made  to  take 
a  hand  with  you,  sir — ^two-handed  picket  or  ekarty,  you 
being  seedy  and  keeping  indoors — just  to  pass  the  time. 
For  all  we  know,  he  may  be  one  of  them  hot  ones  once 
they  start " 

"Is  it  likely?"  came  coldly  from  the  principal.  "Con- 
sidering what  we  know  of  his  history — say  with  his  part- 
ner." 

"True,  sir.  He's  a  cold-blooded  beast;  a  cold-blooded, 
inhuman " 

"And  I'll  tell  you  another  thing  that  isn't  likely.  He 
would  not  be  likely  to  let  himself  be  stripped  bare.  We 
haven't  to  do  with  a  young  fool  that  can  be  led  on  by 
chaff  or  flattery,  and  in  the  end  simply  over-awed.  This  is 
a  calculating  man." 

Ricardo  recognised  that  clearly.  What  he  had  in  his 
mind  was  something  on  a  small  scale,  just  to  keep  the 
enemy  busy  while  he,  Ricardo,  had  time  to  nose  around 
a  bit. 

"You  could  even  lose  a  little  money  to  him,  sir,"  he 
suggested. 

"I  could." 

Ricardo  was  thoughtful  for  a  moment. 

"He  strikes  me,  too,  as  the  sort  of  man  to  start  prancing 
when  one  didn't  expect  it.  What  do  you  think,  sir?  Is  he 
a  man  that  would  prance?  That  is,  if  something  startled 
him.  More  likely  to  prance  than  to  run — what?" 

The  answer  came  at  once,  because  Mr.  Jones  under- 
stood the  peculiar  idiom  of  his  faithful  follower. 

"Oh,  without  doubt!  Without  doubt!" 

"It  does  me  good  to  hear  that  you  think  so.  He's  a 


26o  VICTORY 

prancing  beast,  and  so  we  mustn't  startle  him — not  till  I 
have  located  the  stuff.  Afterwards " 

Ricardo  paused,  sinister  in  the  stillness  of  his  pose. 
Suddenly  he  got  up  with  a  swift  movement  and  gazed 
down  at  his  chief  in  moody  abstraction.  Mr.  Jones  did  not 
stir. 

"There's  one  thing  that's  worrying  me,"  began  Ricardo 
in  a  subdued  voice. 

"Only  one?"  was  the  faint  comment  from  the  motion- 
less body  on  the  bedstead. 

"I  mean  more  than  all  the  others  put  together." 

"That's  grave  news." 

"Ay,  grave  enough.  It's  this — how  do  you  feel  in  your- 
self, sir?  Are  you  likely  to  get  bored?  I  know  them  fits 
come  on  you  suddenly ;  but  surely  you  can  tell " 

"Martin,  you  are  an  ass." 

The  moody  face  of  the  secretary  brightened  up. 

"Really,  sir?  Well,  I  am  quite  content  to  be  on  these 
terms — I  mean  as  long  as  you  don't  get  bored.  It  wouldn't 
do,  sir." 

For  coolness,  Ricardo  had  thrown  open  his  shirt  and 
rolled  up  his  sleeves.  He  moved  stealthily  across  the  room, 
bare-footed,  towards  the  candle,  the  shadow  of  his  head 
and  shoulders  growing  bigger  behind  him  on  the  opposite 
wall,  to  which  the  face  of  plain  Mr.  Jones  was  turned. 
With  a  feline  movement,  Ricardo  glanced  over  his  shoul- 
der at  the  thin  back  of  the  spectre  reposing  on  the  bed, 
and  then  blew  out  the  candle. 

"In  fact,  I  am  rather  amused,  Martin,"  Mr.  Jones  said 
in  the  dark. 

He  heard  the  sound  of  a  slapped  thigh  and  the  jubilant 
exclamation  of  his  henchman : 

"Good  !  That's  the  way  to  talk,  sir !" 


PART   IV 


261 


I 

RiCARDO  advanced  prudently  by  short  darts  from  one 
tree-trunk  to  another,  more  in  the  manner  of  a  squirrel 
than  a  cat.  The  sun  had  risen  some  time  before.  Already 
the  sparkle  of  open  sea  was  encroaching  rapidly  on  the 
dark,  cool,  early-morning  blue  of  Diamond  Bay;  but  the 
deep  dusk  lingered  yet  under  the  mighty  pillars  of  the 
forest,  between  which  the  secretary  dodged. 

He  was  watching  Number  One's  bungalow  with  an 
animal-like  patience,  if  with  a  very  human  complexity  of 
purpose.  This  was  the  second  morning  of  such  watching. 
The  first  one  had  not  been  rewarded  by  success.  Well, 
strictly  speaking,  there  was  no  hurry. 

The  sun,  swinging  above  the  ridge  all  at  once,  inun- 
dated with  light  the  space  of  burnt  grass  in  front  of 
Ricardo  and  the  face  of  the  bungalow,  on  which  his  eyes 
were  fixed,  leaving  only  the  one  dark  spot  of  the  doorway. 
To  his  right,  to  his  left,  and  behind  him,  splashes  of  gold 
appeared  in  the  deep  shade  of  the  forest,  thinning  the 
gloom  under  the  ragged  roof  of  leaves. 

This  was  not  a  very  favourable  circumstance  for  Ricar- 
do's  purpose.  He  did  not  wish  to  be  detected  in  his  patient 
occupation.  For  what  he  was  watching  for  was  a  sight 
of  the  girl — ^that  girl!  Just  a  glimpse  across  the  burnt 
patch  to  see  what  she  was  like.  He  had  excellent  eyes, 
and  the  distance  was  not  so  great.  He  would  be  able  to 
distinguish  her  face  quite  easily  if  she  only  came  out 
on  the  verandah;  and  she  was  bound  to  do  that  sooner 
or  later.  He  was  confident  that  he  could  form  some  opin- 
ion about  her — which,  he  felt,  was  very  necessary,  before 

263 


264  VICTORY 

venturing  on  some  steps  to  get  in  touch  with  her  behind 
that  Swedish  baron's  back.  His  theoretical  view  of  the 
girl  was  such  that  he  was  quite  prepared,  on  the  strength 
of  that  distant  examination,  to  show  himself  discreetly 
— perhaps  even  make  a  sign.  It  all  depended  on  his  read- 
ing of  the  face.  She  couldn't  be  much.  He  knew  that  sort ! 

By  protruding  his  head  a  little  he  commanded,  through 
the  foliage  of  a  festooning  creeper,  a  view  of  the  three 
bungalows,  irregularly  disposed  along  a  flat  curve.  Over 
the  verandah  rail  of  the  farthermost  one  hung  a  dark  rug 
of  a  tartan  pattern,  amazingly  conspicuous.  Ricardo  could 
see  the  very  checks.  A  brisk  fire  of  sticks  was  burning  on 
the  ground  in  front  of  the  steps,  and  in  the  sunlight  the 
thin,  fluttering  flame  had  paled  almost  to  invisibility — a 
mere  rosy  stir  under  a  faint  wreath  of  smoke.  He  could 
see  the  white  bandage  on  the  head  of  Pedro  bending  over 
it,  and  the  wisps  of  black  hair  sticking  up  weirdly.  He 
had  wound  that  bandage  himself,  after  breaking  that 
shaggy  and  enormous  head.  The  creature  balanced  it  like 
a  load,  staggering  towards  the  steps.  Ricardo  could  see 
a  small,  long-handled  saucepan  at  the  end  of  a  great  hairy 
paw. 

Yes,  he  could  see  all  that  there  was  to  be  seen,  far  and 
near.  Excellent  eyes !  The  only  thing  they  could  not  pene- 
trate was  the  dark  oblong  of  the  doorway  on  the  verandah 
under  the  low  eaves  of  the  bungalow's  roof.  And  that  was 
vexing.  It  was  an  outrage.  Ricardo  was  easily  outraged. 
Surely  she  would  come  out  presently!  Why  didn't  she? 
Surely  the  fellow  did  not  tie  her  up  to  the  bed-post  before 
leaving  the  house ! 

Nothing  appeared.  Ricardo  was  as  still  as  the  leafy 
cables  of  creepers  depending  in  a  convenient  curtain  from 
the  mighty  limb  sixty  feet  above  his  head.  His  very  eye- 
lids were  still,  and  this  unblinking  watchfulness  gave  him 
the  dreamy  air  of  a  cat  posed  on  a  hearth-rug  contem- 
plating the  fire.  Was  he  dreaming?  There,  in  plain  sight, 


VICTORY  265 

he  had  before  him  a  white,  blouse-Hke  jacket,  short  blue 
trousers,  a  pair  of  bare  yellow  calves,  a  pigtail,  long  and 
slender ■ 

"The  confounded  Chink !"  he  muttered,  astounded. 

He  was  not  conscious  of  having  looked  away ;  and  yet 
right  there,  in  the  middle  of  the  picture,  without  having 
come  round  the  right-hand  corner  or  the  left-hand  corner 
of  the  house,  without  falling  from  the  sky  or  surging  up 
from  the  ground,  Wang  had  become  visible,  as  large  as 
life,  and  engaged  in  the  young-ladyish  occupation  of  pick- 
ing flowers.  Step  by  step,  stooping  repeatedly  over  the 
flower-beds  at  the  foot  of  the  verandah,  the  startlingly 
materialised  Chinaman  passed  off  the  scene  in  a  very  com- 
monplace manner,  by  going  up  the  steps  and  disappearing 
in  the  darkness  of  the  doorway. 

Only  then  the  yellow  eyes  of  Martin  Ricardo  lost  their 
intent  fixity.  He  understood  that  it  was  time  for  him 
to  be  moving.  That  bunch  of  flowers  going  into  the  house 
in  the  hand  of  a  Chinaman  was  for  the  breakfast-table. 
What  else  could  it  be  for? 

"I'll  give  you  flowers!"  he  muttered  threateningly. 
"You  wait !" 

Another  moment,  just  for  a  glance  towards  the  Jones 
bungalow,  whence  he  expected  Heyst  to  issue  on  his  way 
to  that  breakfast  so  offensively  decorated,  and  Ricardo 
began  his  retreat.  His  impulse,  his  desire,  was  for  a  rush 
into  the  open,  face  to  face  with  the  appointed  victim,  for 
what  he  called  a  "ripping  up,"  visualised  greedily,  and 
always  with  the  swift  preliminary  stooping  movement 
on  his  part — ^the  forerunner  of  certain  death  to  his  adver- 
sary. This  was  his  impulse;  and  it  was,  so  to  speak,  con- 
stitutional, it  was  extremely  diflicult  to  resist  when  his 
blood  was  up.  What  could  be  more  trying  than  to  have 
to  skulk  and  dodge  and  restrain  oneself,  mentally  and 
physically,  when  one's  blood  was  up?  Mr.  Secretary 
Ricardo  began  his  retreat  from  his  post  of  observation 


266  VICTORY 

behind  a  tree  opposite  Heyst's  bungalow,  using  great  care 
to  remain  unseen.  His  proceedings  were  made  easier  by 
the  declivity  of  the  ground,  which  sloped  sharply  down  to 
the  water's  edge.  There,  his  feet  feeling  the  warmth  of  the 
island's  rocky  foundation  already  heated  by  the  sun, 
through  the  thin  soles  of  his  straw  slippers  he  was,  as  it 
were,  sunk  out  of  sight  of  the  houses.  A  short  scramble 
of  some  twenty  feet  brought  him  up  again  to  the  upper 
level,  at  the  place  where  the  jetty  had  its  root  in  the  shore. 
He  leaned  his  back  against  one  of  the  lofty  uprights  which 
still  held  up  the  company's  sign-board  above  the  mound 
of  derelict  coal.  Nobody  could  have  guessed  how  much 
his  blood  was  up.  To  contain  himself  he  folded  his  arms 
tightly  on  his  breast. 

Ricardo  was  not  used  to  a  prolonged  effort  of  self- 
control.  His  craft,  his  artfulness,  felt  themselves  always 
at  the  mercy  of  his  nature,  which  was  truly  feral  and  only 
held  in  subjection  by  the  influence  of  the  ''governor,"  the 
prestige  of  a  gentleman.  It  had  its  cunning  too,  but  it  was 
being  almost  too  severely  tried  since  the  feral  solution 
of  a  growl  and  a  spring  was  forbidden  by  the  problem. 
Ricardo  dared  not  venture  out  on  the  cleared  ground.  He 
dared  not. 

'Tf  I  meet  the  beggar,"  he  thought,  'T  don't  know  w^hat 
I  mayn't  do.  I  daren't  trust  myself." 

What  exasperated  him  just  now  was  his  inability  to 
understand  Heyst.  Ricardo  was  human  enough  to  suffer 
,  from  the  discovery  of  his  limitations.  No,  he  couldn't  size 
Heyst  up.  He  could  kill  him  with  extreme  ease — a  growl 
and  a  spring — but  that  was  forbidden !  However,  he  could 
not  remain  indefinitely  under  the  funereal  blackboard. 

"I  must  make  a  move,"  he  thought. 

He  moved  on,  his  head  swimming  a  little  with  the  re- 
pressed desire  of  violence,  and  came  out  openly  in  front 
of  the  bungalows,  as  if  he  had  just  been  down  to  the  jetty 
to  look  at  the  boat.  The  sunshine  enveloped  him,  very 


VICTORY  267 

brilliant,  very  still,  very  hot.  The  three  buildings  faced 
him.  The  one  with  the  rug  on  the  balustrade  was  the 
most  distant;  next  to  it  was  the  empty  bungalow;  the 
nearest,  with  the  flower-beds  at  the  foot  of  its  verandah, 
contained  that  bothersome  girl,  who  had  managed  so 
provokingly  to  keep  herself  invisible.  That  was  why  Ricar- 
do's  eyes  lingered  on  that  building.  The  girl  would  surely 
be  easier  to  "size  up"  than  Heyst.  A  sight  of  her,  a  mere 
glimpse,  would  have  been  something  to  go  by,  a  step 
nearer  to  the  goal — the  first  real  move,  in  fact.  Ricardo 
saw  no  other  move.  And  any  time  she  might  appear  on 
that  verandah ! 

She  did  not  appear;  but,  like  a  concealed  magnet,  she 
exercised  her  attraction.  As  he  went  on,  he  deviated  to- 
wards the  bungalow.  Though  his  movements  were  deliber- 
ate, his  feral  instincts  had  such  sway  that  if  he  had  met 
Heyst  walking  towards  him,  he  would  have  had  to  satisfy 
his  need  of  violence.  But  he  saw  nobody.  Wang  was  at 
the  back  of  the  house,  keeping  the  coffee  hot  against 
Number  One's  return  for  breakfast.  Even  the  simian 
Pedro  was  out  of  sight,  no  doubt  crouching  on  the  door- 
step, his  red  little  eyes  fastened  with  animal-like  devotion 
on  Mr.  Jones,  who  was  in  discourse  with  Heyst  in  the 
other  bungalow — ^the  conversation  of  an  evil  spectre  with 
a  disarmed  man,  watched  by  an  ape. 

His  will  having  very  little  to  do  with  it,  Ricardo,  dart- 
ing swift  glances  in  all  directions,  found  himself  at  the 
steps  of  the  Heyst  bungalow.  Once  there,  falling  under 
an  uncontrollable  force  of  attraction,  he  mounted  them 
with  a  savage  and  stealthy  action  of  his  limbs,  and  paused 
for  a  moment  under  the  eaves  to  listen  to  the  silence. 
Presently  he  advanced  over  the  threshold  one  leg — it 
seemed  to  stretch  itself,  like  a  limb  of  india-rubber — 
planted  his  foot  within,  brought  up  the  other  swiftly, 
and  stood  inside  the  room,  turning  his  head  from  side  to 
side.   To  his  eyes,  brought  in  there   from  the  dazzling 


268  VICTORY 

sunshine,  all  was  gloom  for  a  moment.  His  pupils,  like  a 
cat's,  dilating  swiftly,  he  distinguished  an  enormous  quan- 
tity of  books.  He  was  amazed ;  and  he  was  put  off,  too. 
He  was  vexed  in  his  astonishment.  He  had  meant  to  note 
the  aspect  and  nature  of  things,  and  hoped  to  draw  some 
useful  inference,  some  hint  as  to  the  man.  But  what  guess 
could  one  make  out  of  a  multitude  of  books?  He  didn't 
know  what  to  think ;  and  he  formulated  his  bewilderment 
in  the  mental  exclamation : 

''What  the  devil  has  this  fellow  been  trying  to  set  up 
here — a  school?" 

He  gave  a  prolonged  stare  to  the  portrait  of  Heyst's 
father,  that  severe  profile  ignoring  the  vanities  of  this 
earth.  His  eyes  gleamed  sideways  at  the  heavy  silver 
candlesticks — signs  of  opulence.  He  prowled  as  a  stray 
cat  entering  a  strange  place  might  have  done ;  for  if 
Ricardo  had  not  Wang's  miraculous  gift  of  materialising 
and  vanishing,  rather  than  coming  and  going,  he  could 
be  nearly  as  noiseless  in  his  less  elusive  movements.  He 
noted  the  back  door  standing  just  ajar ;  and  all  the  time 
his  slightly  pointed  ears,  at  the  utmost  stretch  of  watch- 
fulness, kept  in  touch  with  the  profound  silence  outside, 
enveloping  the  absolute  stillness  of  the  house. 

He  had  not  been  in  the  room  two  minutes  when  it 
occurred  to  him  that  he  must  be  alone  in  the  bungalow. 
The  woman,  most  likely,  had  sneaked  out,  and  was  walk- 
ing about  somewhere  in  the  grounds  at  the  back.  She 
had  been  probably  ordered  to  keep  out  of  sight.  Why? 
Because  the  fellow  mistrusted  his  guests;  or  was  it  be- 
cause he  mistrusted  her? 

Ricardo  reflected  that  from  a  certain  point  of  view 
it  amounted  nearly  to  the  same  thing.  He  remembered 
Schomberg's  story.  He  felt  that  running  away  with  some- 
body only  to  get  clear  of  that  beastly,  tame,  hotel-keeper's 
attentions,  was  no  proof  of  hopeless  infatuation.  She 
could  be  got  in  touch  with. 


VICTORY  269 

His  moustaches  stirred.  For  some  time  he  had  been 
looking  at  a  closed  door.  He  would  peep  into  that  other 
room,  and  perhaps  see  something  more  informing  than 
a  confounded  lot  of  books.  As  he  crossed  over,  he  thought 
recklessly : 

"If  the  beggar  comes  in  suddenly,  and  starts  to  prance, 
I'll  rip  him  up  and  be  done  with  it !'' 

He  laid  his  hand  on  the  handle,  and  felt  the  door  come 
unlatched.  Before  he  pulled  it  open,  he  listened  again  to 
the  silence.  He  felt  it  all  about  him,  complete,  without 
a  flaw. 

The  necessity  of  prudence  had  exasperated  his  self- 
restraint.  A  mood  of  ferocity  woke  up  in  him,  and,  a? 
always  at  such  times,  he  became  physically  aware  of  the 
sheeted  knife  strapped  to  his  leg.  He  pulled  at  the  door 
with  fierce  curiosity.  It  came  open  without  a  squeak  of 
hinge,  without  a  rustle,  with  no  sound  at  all;  and  he 
found  himself  glaring  at  the  opaque  surface  of  some 
rough  blue  stuff,  like  serge.  A  curtain  was  fitted  inside, 
heavy  enough  and  long  enough  not  to  stir. 

A  curtain!  This  unforeseen  veil,  baffling  his  curiosity, 
checked  his  brusqueness.  He  did  not  fling  it  aside  with 
an  impatient  movement ;  he  only  looked  at  it  closely,  as  if 
its  texture  had  to  be  examined  before  his  hand  could 
touch  such  stuff.  In  this  interval  of  hesitation  he  seemed 
to  detect  a  flaw  in  the  perfection  of  the  silence,  the  faint- 
est possible  rustle,  which  his  ears  caught  and  instantly, 
in  the  effort  of  conscious  listening,  lost  again.  No! 
Everything  was  still  inside  and  outside  the  house,  only 
he  had  no  longer  the  sense  of  being  alone  there. 

When  he  put  out  his  hand  towards  the  motionless  folds 
it  was  with  extreme  caution,  and  merely  to  push  the  stuff 
aside  a  little,  advancing  his  head  at  the  same  time  to  peep 
within.  A  moment  of  complete  immobility  ensued.  Then, 
without  anything  else  of  him  stirring,  Ricardo's  head 
shrank  back  on  his  shoulders,  his  arm  descended  slowly 


270  VICTORY 

to  his  side.  There  was  a  woman  in  there.  The  very 
woman !  Lighted  dimly  by  the  reflection  of  the  outer  glare, 
she  loomed  up  strangely  big  and  shadowy  at  the  other  end 
of  the  long,  narrow  room.  With  her  back  to  the  door,  she 
was  doing  her  hair  with  her  bare  arms  uplifted.  One  of 
them  gleamed  pearly  white ;  the  other  detached  its  perfect 
form  in  black  against  the  unshuttered,  uncurtained  square 
window-hole.  She  was  there,  her  fingers  busy  with  her 
dark  hair,  utterly  unconscious,  exposed  and  defenceless — 
and  tempting. 

Ricardo  drew  back  one  foot  and  pressed  his  elbows 
close  to  his  sides;  his  chest  started  heaving  convulsively, 
as  if  he  were  wrestling  or  running  a  race ;  his  body  began 
to  sway  gently  back  and  forth.  The  self-restraint  was 
at  an  end :  his  psychology  must  have  its  way.  The  instinct 
for  the  feral  spring  could  no  longer  be  denied.  Ravish 
or  kill — it  was  all  one  to  him,  as  long  as  by  the  act  he 
liberated  the  suffering  soul  of  savagery  repressed  for  so 
long.  After  a  quick  glance  over  his  shoulder,  which  hunt- 
ers of  big  game  tell  us  no  lion  or  tiger  omits  to  give 
before  charging  home,  Ricardo  charged,  head  down, 
straight  at  the  curtain.  The  stuff,  tossed  up  violently  by 
his  rush,  settled  itself  with  a  slow,  floating  descent  into 
vertical  folds,  motionless,  without  a  shudder  even,  in  the 
still,  warm  air. 


II 

The  clock — which  once  upon  a  time  had  measured  the 
hours  of  philosophic  meditation — could  not  have  ticked 
away  more  than  five  seconds  when  Wang  materialised 
within  the  living-room.  His  concern  primarily  was  with 
the  delayed  breakfast,  but  at  once  his  slanting  eyes  became 
immovably  fixed  upon  the  unstirring  curtain.  For  it  was 
behind  it  that  he  had  located  the  strange,  deadened  scuf- 
fling sounds  which  filled  the  empty  room.  The  slanting 
eyes  of  his  race  could  not  achieve  a  round,  amazed  stare ; 
but  they  remained  still,  dead  still,  and  his  impassive  yel- 
low face  grew  all  at  once  careworn  and  lean  with  the 
sudden  strain  of  intense,  doubtful,  frightened  watchful- 
ness. Contrary  impulses  swayed  his  body,  rooted  to  the 
floor-mats.  He  even  went  so  far  as  to  extend  his  hand 
towards  the  curtain.  He  could  not  reach  it,  and  he  didn't 
make  the  necessary  step  forward. 

The  mysterious  struggle  was  going  on  with  confused 
thuds  of  bare  feet,  in  a  mute  wrestling  match,  no  human 
sound,  hiss,  groan,  murmur,  or  exclamation  coming 
through  the  curtain.  A  chair  fell  over,  not  with  a  crash 
but  lightly,  as  if  just  grazed,  and  a  faint  metallic  ring 
of  the  tin  bath  succeeded.  Finally  the  tense  silence,  as 
of  two  adversaries  locked  in  a  deadly  grip,  was  ended 
by  the  heavy,  dull  thump  of  a  soft  body  flung  against 
the  inner  partition  of  planks.  It  seemed  to  shake  the  whole 
bungalow.  By  that  time,  walking  backward,  his  eyes,  his 
very  throat,  strained  with  fearful  excitement,  his  extended 
arm  still  pointing  at  the  curtain,  Wang  had  disappeared 

271 


272  VICTORY 

through  the  back  door.  Once  out  in  the  compound,  he 
bolted  round  the  end  of  the  house.  Emerging  innocently 
between  the  two  bungalows  he  lingered  and  lounged  in 
the  open,  where  anybody  issuing  from  any  of  the  dwell- 
ings was  bound  to  see  him — a  self-possessed  Chinaman 
idling  there,  with  nothing  but  perhaps  an  unserved  break- 
fast on  his  mind. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  Wang  made  up  his  mind  to 
give  up  all  connection  with  Number  One,  a  man  not 
only  disarmed  but  already  half  vanquished.  Till  that 
morning  he  had  had  doubts  as  to  his  course  of  action,  but 
this  overheard  scuffle  decided  the  question.  Number  One 
was  a  doomed  man — one  of  those  beings  whom  it  is  un- 
lucky to  help.  Even  as  he  walked  in  the  open  with  a  fine 
air  of  unconcern,  Wang  wondered  that  no  sound  of  any 
sort  was  to  be  heard  inside  the  house.  For  all  he  knew, 
the  white  woman  might  have  been  scuffling  in  there  with 
an  evil  spirit,  which  had  of  course  killed  her.  For  nothing 
visible  came  out  of  the  house  he  watched  out  of  the 
slanting  corner  of  his  eye.  The  sunshine  and  the  silence 
outside  the  bungalow  reigned  undisturbed. 

But  in  the  house  the  silence  of  the  big  room  would  not 
have  struck  an  acute  ear  as  perfect.  It  was  troubled  by 
a  stir  so  faint  that  it  could  hardly  be  called  a  ghost  of 
whispering  from  behind  the  curtain. 

Ricardo,  feeling  his  throat  with  tender  care,  breathed 
out  admiringly: 

"You  have  fingers  like  steel.  Jimminy!  You  have 
muscles  like  a  giant!" 

Luckily  for  Lena,  Ricardo's  onset  had  been  so  sudden 
— she  was  winding  her  two  heavy  tresses  round  her  head 
— ^that  she  had  no  time  to  lower  her  arms.  This,  which 
saved  them  from  being  pinned  to  her  sides,  gave  her  a 
better  chance  to  resist.  His  spring  had  nearly  thrown  her 
down.  Luckily,  again,  she  was  standing  so  near  the  wall 
that,  though  she  was  driven  against  it  headlong,  yet  the 


VICTORY  273 

shock  was  not  heavy  enough  to  knock  all  the  breath  out 
of  her  body.  On  the  contrary,  it  helped  her  first  instinc- 
tive attempt  to  drive  her  assailant  backward. 

After  the  first  gasp  of  a  surprise  that  was  really  too 
overpowering  for  a  cry,  she  was  never  in  doubt  of  the 
nature  of  the  danger.  She  defended  herself  in  the  full, 
clear  knowledge  of  it,  from  the  force  of  instinct  which  is 
the  true  source  of  every  great  display  of  energy,  and  with 
a  determination  which  could  hardly  have  been  expected 
from  a  girl  who,  cornered  in  a  dim  corridor  by  the  red- 
faced,  stammering  Schomberg,  had  trembled  with  shame, 
disgust,  and  fear;  had  drooped,  terrified,  before  mere 
words  spluttered  out  odiously  by  a  man  who  had  never 
in  his  life  laid  his  big  paw  on  her. 

This  new  enemy's  attack  was  simple,  straightforward 
violence.  It  was  not  the  slimy,  underhand  plotting  to 
deliver  her  up  like  a  slave,  which  had  sickened  her  heart 
and  made  her  feel  in  her  loneliness  that  her  oppressors 
were  too  many  for  her.  She  was  no  longer  alone  in  the 
world  now.  She  resisted  without  a  moment  of  faltering, 
because  she  was  no  longer  deprived  of  moral  support; 
because  she  was  a  human  being  who  counted;  because 
she  was  no  longer  defending  herself  for  herself  alone; 
because  of  the  faith  that  had  been  born  in  her — ^the 
faith  in  the  man  of  her  destiny,  and  perhaps  in  the 
Heaven  which  had  sent  him  so  wonderfully  to  cross  her 
path. 

She  had  defended  herself  principally  by  maintaining  a 
desperate,  murderous  clutch  on  Ricardo's  windpipe,  till 
she  felt  a  sudden  relaxation  of  the  terrific  hug  in  which 
he  stupidly  and  ineffectually  persisted  to  hold  her.  Then 
with  a  supreme  effort  of  her  arms  and  of  her  suddenly 
raised  knee,  she  sent  him  flying  against  the  partition. 
The  cedar-wood  chest  stood  in  the  way,  and  Ricardo, 
with  a  thump  which  boomed  hollow  through  the  whole 
bungalow,  fell  on  it  in  a  sitting  posture,  half  strangled, 


274  VICTORY 

and  exhausted  not  so  much  by  the  efforts  as  by  the  emo- 
tions of  the  struggle. 

With  the  recoil  of  her  exerted  strength,  she  too  reeled, 
staggered  back,  and  sat  on  the  edge  of  the  bed.  Out  of 
breath,  but  calm  and  unabashed,  she  busied  herself  in 
readjusting  under  her  arms  the  brown  and  yellow  figured 
Celebes  sarong,  the  tuck  of  which  had  come  undone  during 
the  fight.  Then,  folding  her  bare  arms  tightly  on  her 
breast,  she  leaned  forward  on  her  crossed  legs,  deter- 
mined and  without  fear. 

Ricardo,  leaning  forward  too,  his  nervous  force  gone, 
crestfallen  like  a  beast  of  prey  that  has  missed  its  spring, 
met  her  big  grey  eyes  looking  at  him — wide  open,  observ- 
ing, mysterious — from  under  the  dark  arches  of  her 
courageous  eyebrows.  Their  faces  were  not  a  foot  apart. 
He  ceased  feeling  about  his  aching  throat  and  dropped 
the  palms  of  his  hands  heavily  on  his  knees.  He  w^as  not 
looking  at  her  bare  shoulders,  at  her  strong  arms ;  he  was 
looking  down  at  the  floor.  He  had  lost  one  of  his  straw 
slippers.  A  chair  with  a  white  dress  on  it  had  been  over- 
turned. These,  with  splashes  of  water  on  the  floor  out 
of  a  brusquely  misplaced  sponge-bath,  were  the  only 
traces  of  the  struggle. 

Ricardo  swallowed  twice  consciously,  as  if  to  make 
sure  of  his  throat,  before  he  spoke  again: 

"All  right.  I  never  meant  to  hurt  you — ^though  I  am 
no  joker  when  it  comes  to  it." 

He  pulled  up  the  leg  of  his  pyjamas  to  exhibit  the 
strapped  knife.  She  glanced  at  it  without  moving  her 
head,  and  murmured,  with  scornful  bitterness : 

"Ah,  yes — with  that  thing  stuck  in  my  side.  In  no 
other  way." 

He  shook  his  head  with  a  shamefaced  smile. 

"Listen !  I  am  quiet  now.  Straight — I  am.  I  don't  need 
to  explain  why — you  know  how  it  is.  And  I  can  see,  now, 
this  wasn't  the  way  with  you." 


VICTORY  275 

She  made  no  sound.  Her  still,  upward  gaze  had  a 
patient  mourn  fulness  which  troubled  him  like  a  sugges- 
tion of  an  inconceivable  depth.  He  added  doubtfully: 

"You  are  not  going  to  make  a  noise  about  this  silly 
try  of  mine?" 

She  moved  her  head  the  least  bit. 

"Jee-miny!  You  are  a  wonder,"  he  murmured  ear- 
nestly, relieved  more  than  she  could  have  guessed. 

Of  course,  if  she  had  attempted  to  run  out,  he  would 
have  stuck  the  knife  between  her  shoulders,  to  stop  her 
screaming;  but  all  the  fat  would  have  been  in  the  fire, 
the  business  utterly  spoiled,  and  the  rage  of  the  governor 
— especially  when  he  learned  the  cause — ^boundless.  A 
woman  who  does  not  make  a  noise  after  an  attempt  of 
that  kind  has  tacitly  condoned  the  offence.  Ricardo  had 
no  small  vanities.  But  clearly,  if  she  would  pass  it  over 
like  this,  then  he  could  not  be  so  utterly  repugnant  to  her. 
He  felt  flattered.  And  she  didn't  seem  afraid  of  him 
either.  He  already  felt  almost  tender  towards  the  girl — 
that  plucky,  fine  girl  who  had  not  tried  to  run  screaming 
from  him. 

"We  shall  be  friends  yet.  I  don't  give  you  up.  Don't 
think  it.  Friends  as  friends  can  be!"  he  whispered  confi- 
dently. " Jee-miny !  You  aren't  a  tame  one.  Neither  am  I, 
You  will  find  that  out  before  long." 

He  could  not  know  that  if  she  had  not  run  out,  it  was 
because  that  morning,  under  the  stress  of  growing  un- 
easiness at  the  presence  of  the  incomprehensible  visitors, 
Heyst  had  confessed  to  her  that  it  was  his  revolver  he 
had  been  looking  for  in  the  night ;  that  it  was  gone ;  that 
he  was  a  disarmed,  defenceless  man.  She  had  hardly  com- 
prehended the  meaning  of  his  confession.  Now  she  under- 
stood better  what  it  meant.  The  effort  of  her  self-control, 
her  stillness,  impressed  Ricardo.  Suddenly  she  spoke: 

"What  are  you  after?" 

He  did  not  raise  his  eyes.  His  hands  reposing  on  his 


276  VICTORY 

knees,  his  drooping  head,  something  reflective  in  his  pose, 
suggested  the  weariness  of  a  simple  soul,  the  fatigue  of  a 
mental  rather  than  physical  contest.  He  answered  the 
direct  question  by  a  direct  statement,  as  if  he  were  too 
tired  to  dissemble : 

"After  the  swag/' 

The  word  was  strange  to  her.  The  veiled  ardour  of  her 
grey  gaze  from  under  the  dark  eyebrows  never  left  Ricar- 
do's  face. 

*'A  swag?"  she  murmured  quietly.  ''What's  that?" 

"Why,  swag,  plunder — what  your  gentleman  has  been 
pinching  right  and  left  for  years — ^the  pieces.  Don't  you 
know?  This!" 

Without  looking  up,  he  made  the  motion  of  counting 
money  into  the  palm  of  his  hand.  She  lowered  her  eyes 
slightly  to  observe  this  bit  of  pantomime,  but  returned 
them  to  his  face  at  once.  Then,  in  a  mere  breath: 

"How  do  you  know  anything  about  him?"  she  asked, 
concealing  her  puzzled  alarm.  "What  has  it  got  to  do  with 
you?" 

"Everything,"  was  Ricardo's  concise  answer,  in  a  low, 
emphatic  whisper.  He  reflected  that  this  girl  w^as  really 
his  best  hope.  Out  of  the  unfaded  impression  of  past 
violence  there  was  growing  the  sort  of  sentiment  which 
prevents  a  man  from  being  indifferent  to  a  woman  he 
has  once  held  in  his  arms — if  even  against  her  will — and 
still  more  so  if  she  has  pardoned  ^he  outrage.  It  becomes 
then  a  sort  of  bond.  He  felt  positively  the  need  to  confide 
in  her — a  subtle  trait  of  masculinity,  this,  almost  physical, 
need  of  trust  which  can  exist  side  by  side  with  the  most 
brutal  readiness  of  suspicion. 

"It's  a  game  of  grab — see?"  he  went  on,  with  a  new 
inflection  of  intimacy  in  his  murmur.  He  was  looking 
straight  at  her  now.  "That  fat.  tame  slug  of  a  gin-slinger, 
Schomberg,  put  us  up  to  it." 

So  strong  is  the  imDression  of  helpless  and  persecuted 


VICTORY  277 

misery,  that  the  girl  who  had  fought  down  a  savage 
assault  without  faltering  could  not  completely  repress  a 
shudder  at  the  mere  sound  of  the  abhorred  name. 

Ricardo  became  more  rapid  and  confidential : 

"He  wants  to  pay  him  off — pay  both  of  you,  at  that ;  so 
he  told  me.  He  was  hot  after  you.  He  would  have  given 
all  he  had  into  those  hands  of  yours  that  have  nearly 
strangled  me.  But  you  couldn't,  eh?  Nohow — what?"  He 
paused.  "So,  rather  than — ^you  followed  a  gentleman?" 

He  noticed  a  slight  movement  of  her  head  and  spoke 
quickly. 

"Same  here — rather  than  be  a  wage-slave.  Only  these 
foreigners  aren't  to  be  trusted.  You're  too  good  for  him. 
A  man  that  will  rob  his  best  chum !"  She  raised  her  head. 
He  went  on,  well  pleased  with  his  progress,  whispering 
hurriedly :  "Yes.  I  know  all  about  him.  So  you  may  guess 
how  he's  likely  to  treat  a  woman  after  a  bit!" 

He  did  not  know  that  he  was  striking  terror  into  her 
breast  now.  Still  the  grey  eyes  remained  fixed  on  him 
unmovably  watchful,  as  if  sleepy,  under  the  white  fore- 
head. She  was  beginning  to  understand.  His  words  con- 
veyed a  definite,  dreadful  meaning  to  her  mind,  which  he 
proceeded  to  enlighten  further  in  a  convinced  murmur. 

"You  and  I  are  made  to  understand  each  other.  Born 
alike,  bred  alike,  I  guess.  You  are  not  tame.  Same  here! 
You  have  been  chucked  out  into  this  rotten  world  of 
'yporcrits.  Same  here!" 

Her  stillness,  her  appalled  stillness,  wore  to  him  an  air 
of  fascinated  attention.  He  asked  abruptly: 

"Where  is  it?" 

She  made  an  effort  to  breathe  out: 

"Where's  what?" 

His  tone,  expressed  excited  secrecy. 

"The  swag — plunder — pieces.  It's  a  game  of  grab.  We 
must  have  it;  but  it  isn't  easy,  and  so  you  will  have  to 
lend  a  hand.  Come !  Is  it  kept  in  the  house  ?" 


278  VICTORY 

As  often  with  women,  her  wits  were  sharpened  by  the 
very  terror  of  the  ghmpsed  menace.  She  shook  her  head 
negatively. 

"No." 

"Sure?" 

"Sure,"  she  said. 

"Ay!  Thought  so.  Does  your  gentleman  trust  you?" 

Again  she  shook  her  head. 

"Blamed  'yporcrit,"  he  said  feelingly,  and  then  he  re- 
flected: "He's  one  of  the  tame  ones,  ain't  he?" 

"You  had  better  find  out  for  yourself,"  she  said. 

"You  trust  me.  I  don't  want  to  die  before  you  and 
I  have  made  friends."  This  was  said  with  a  strange  air 
of  feline  gallantry.  Then,  tentatively :  "But  he  could  be 
brought  to  trust  you,  couldn't  he?" 

"Trust  me?"  she  said,  in  a  tone  which  bordered  on 
despair,  but  which  he  mistook  for  derision. 

"Stand  in  with, us,"  he  urged.  "Give  the  chuck  to  all 
this  blamed  'yporcrisy.  Perhaps,  without  being  trusted,  you 
have  managed  to  find  out  something  already,  eh?" 

"Perhaps  I  have,"  she  uttered  with  lips  that  seemed 
to  her  to  be  freezing  fast. 

Ricardo  now  looked  at  her  calm  face  with  something 
like  respect.  He  was  even  a  little  awed  by  her  stillness, 
by  her  economy  of  words.  Womanlike,  she  felt  the  effect 
she  had  produced,  the  effect  of  knowing  much  and  of 
keeping  all  her  knowledge  in  reserve.  So  far,  somehow, 
this  had  come  about  of  itself.  Thus  encouraged,  directed 
in  the  way  of  duplicity,  the  refuge  of  the  weak,  she  made 
a  heroically  conscious  effort  and  forced  her  stiff,  cold 
lips  into  a  smile. 

Duplicity — the  refuge  of  the  weak  and  the  cowardly, 
but  of  the  disarmed,  too!  Nothing  stood  between  the 
enchanted  dream  of  her  existence  and  a  cruel  catastrophe 
but  her  duplicity.  It  seemed  to  her  that  the  man  sitting 
there  before  her  was  an  unavoidable  presence,  which  had 


VICTORY  279 

attended  all  her  life.  He  was  the  embodied  evil  of  the 
world.  She  was  not  ashamed  of  her  duplicity.  With  a 
woman's  frank  courage,  as  soon  as  she  saw  that  opening 
she  threw  herself  into  it  without  reserve,  with  only  one 
doubt — ^that  of  her  own  strength.  She  was  appalled  by  the 
situation;  but  already  all  her  aroused  femininity,  under- 
standing that  whether  Heyst  loved  her  or  not  she  loved 
him,  and  feeling  that  she  had  brought  this  on  his  head, 
faced  the  danger  with  a  passionate  desire  to  defend 
her  own. 


Ill 

To  RiCARDO  the  girl  had  been  so  unforeseen  that  he  was 
unable  to  bring  upon  her  the  Hght  of  his  critical  faculties. 
Her  smile  appeared  to  him  full  of  promise.  He  had  not 
expected  her  to  be  what  she  was.  Who,  from  the  talk  he 
had  heard,  could  expect  to  meet  a  girl  like  this  ?  She  was 
a  blooming  miracle,  he  said  to  himself,  familiarly,  yet  with 
a  tinge  of  respect.  She  was  no  meat  for  the  likes  of  that 
tame,  respectable  gin-slinger.  Ricardo  grew  hot  with  indig- 
nation. Her  courage,  her  physical  strength,  demonstrated 
at  the  cost  of  his  discomfiture,  commanded  his  sympathy. 
He  felt  himself  drawn  to  her  by  the  proofs  of  her  amaz- 
ing spirit.  Such  a  girl !  She  had  a  strong  soul ;  and  her 
reflective  disposition  to  throw  over  her  connection  proved 
that  she  was  no  hypocrite. 

"Is  your  gentleman  a  good  shot?'*  he  said,  looking 
down  on  the  floor  again,  as  if  indifferent. 

She  hardly  understood  the  phrase;  but  in  its  form  it 
suggested  some  accomplishment.  It  was  safe  to  whisper 
an  affirmative. 

"Yes." 

"Mine,  too — and  better  than  good,"  Ricardo  mur- 
mured, and  then,  in  a  confidential  burst:  "I  am  not  so 
good  at  it,  but  I  carry  a  pretty  deadly  thing  about  me, 
all  the  same !" 

He  tapped  his  leg.  She  was  past  the  stage  of  shudders 
now.  Stiff  all  over,  unable  even  to  move  her  eyes,  she 
felt  an  awful  mental  tension  which  was  like  blank  forget- 
fulness.  Ricardo  tried  to  influence  her  in  his  own  way.     i 

"And  my  gentleman  is  not  the  sort  that  would  drop 

280 


VICTORY  281 

me.  He  ain't  no  foreigner ;  whereas  you,  with  your  baron, 
you  don't  know  what's  bef.ore  you — or,  rather,  being  a 
woman,  you  know  only  too  well.  Much  better  not  to  wait 
for  the  chuck.  Pile  in  with  us  and  get  your  share — of  the 
plunder,  I  mean.  You  have  some  notion  about  it  already." 

She  felt  that  if  she  as  much  as  hinted  by  word  or  sign 
that  there  was  no  such  thing  on  the  island,  Heyst's  life 
wouldn't  be  worth  half  an  hour's  purchase ;  but  all  power 
of  combining  words  had  vanished  in  the  tension  of  her 
mind.  Words  themselves  were  too  difficult  to  think  of — ' 
all  except  the  word  "yes."  The  saving  word!  She  whis* 
pered  it  with  not  a  feature  of  her  face  moving.  To 
Ricardo  the  faint  and  concise  sound  proved  a  cool,  re- 
served assent,  more  worth  having  from  that  amazing 
mistress  of  herself  than  a  thousand  words  from  any  other 
woman.  He  thought  with  exultation  that  he  had  come 
upon  one  in  a  million — in  ten  millions!  His  whisper  be- 
came frankly  entreating. 

"That's  good!  Now  all  you've  got  to  do  is  to  make 
sure  where  he  keeps  his  swag.  Only  do  be  quick  about  it ! 
I  can't  stand  much  longer  this  crawling-on-the-stomach 
business  so  as  not  to  scare  your  gentleman.  What  do  you 
think  a  fellow  is — a  reptile?" 

She  stared  without  seeing  any  one,  as  a  person  in  the 
night  sits  staring  and  listening  to  deadly  sounds,  to  evil 
incantations.  And  always  in  her  head  there  was  that  ten- 
sion of  the  mind  trying  to  get  hold  of  something,  of  a 
saving  idea  which  seemed  to  be  so  near  and  could  not  be 
captured.  Suddenly  she  seized  it.  Yes — she  had  to  get 
that  man  out  of  the  house.  At  that  very  moment,  raised 
outside,  not  very  near,  but  heard  distinctly,  Heyst's  voice 
uttered  the  words : 

"Have  you  been  looking  out  for  me,  Wang?" 

It  was  for  her  like  a  flash  of  lightning  framed  in  the 
darkness  which  had  beset  her  on  all  sides,  showing  ?» 
deadly  precipice  right  under  her  feet.  With  a  convulsive 


282  VICTORY 

movement  she  sat  up  straight,  but  had  no  power  to  rise. 
Ricardo,  on  the  contrary,  was  on  his  feet  on  the  instant, 
as  noiseless  as  a  cat.  His  yellow  eyes  gleamed,  gliding 
here  and  there ;  but  he,  too,  seemed  unable  to  make  an- 
other movement.  Only  his  moustaches  stirred  visibly,  like 
the  feelers  of  some  animal. 

Wang's  answer,  ''Ya,  Tuan/'  was  heard  by  the  two  in 
the  room,  but  more  faintly.  Then  Heyst  again: 

"All  right!  You  may  bring  the  coffee  in.  Mem  Putih 
out  in  the  room  yet?" 

To  this  question  Wang  made  no  answer. 

Ricardo's  and  the  girl's  eyes  met,  utterly  without  ex- 
pression, all  their  faculties  being  absorbed  in  listening  for 
the  first  sound  of  Heyst's  footsteps,  for  any  sound  out- 
side which  would  mean  that  Ricardo's  retreat  was  cut  off. 
Both  understood  perfectly  well  that  Wang  must  have 
gone  round  the  house,  and  that  he  was  now  at  the  back, 
making  it  impossible  for  Ricardo  to  slip  out  unseen  that 
way  before  Heyst  came  in  at  the  front. 

A  darkling  shade  settled  on  the  face  of  the  devoted 
secretary.  Here  was  the  business  utterly  spoiled!  It  was 
the  gloom  of  anger,  and  even  of  apprehension.  He  would 
perhaps  have  made  a  dash  for  it  through  the  back  door, 
if  Heyst  had  not  been  heard  ascending  the  front  steps. 
He  climbed  them  slowly,  very  slowly,  like  a  man  who  is 
discouraged  or  weary — or  simply  thoughtful ;  and  Ricardo 
had  a  mental  vision  of  his  face,  with  its  martial  mous- 
taches, the  lofty  forehead,  the  impassive  features,  and 
the  quiet,  meditative  eyes.  Trapped!  Confound  it!  After 
all,  perhaps  the  governor  was  right.  Women  had  to  be 
shunned.  Fooling  with  this  one  had  apparently  ruined  the 
whole  business.  For,  trapped  as  he  was,  he  might  just 
as  well  kill,  since,  anyhow,  to  be  seen  was  to  be  un- 
masked. But  he  was  too  fair-minded  to  be  angry  with 
the  girl. 


VICTORY  283 

Heyst  had  paused  on  the  verandah,  or  in  the  very 
doorway. 

"I  shall  be  shot  down  like  a  dog  if  I  ain't  quick/' 
Ricardo  muttered  excitedly  to  the  girl. 

He  stooped  to  get  hold  of  his  knife;  and  the  next 
moment  would  have  hurled  himself  out  through  the  cur- 
tain, nearly  as  prompt  and  fully  as  deadly  to  Heyst  as 
an  unexpected  thunderbolt.  The  feel  more  than  the 
strength  of  the  girl's  hand,  clutching  at  his  shoulder, 
checked  him.  He  swung  round,  crouching  with  a  yel- 
low upward  glare.  Ah!  Was  she  turning  against  him? 

He  would  have  stuck  his  knife  into  the  hollow  of  her 
bare  throat  if  he  had  not  seen  her  other  hand  pointing 
to  the  window.  It  was  a  long  opening,  high  up,  close 
under  the  ceiling  almost,  with  a  single  pivoting  shutter. 

While  he  was  still  looking  at  it,  she  moved  noiselessly 
away,  picked  up  the  overturned  chair,  and  placed  it 
under  the  wall.  Then  she  looked  round;  but  he  didn't 
need  to  be  beckoned  to.  In  two  long,  tiptoeing  strides 
he  was  at  her  side. 

"Be  quick!"  she  gasped. 

He  seized  her  hand  and  wrung  it  with  all  the  force 
of  his  dumb  gratitude,  as  a  man  does  to  a  chum  when 
there  is  no  time  for  words.  Then  he  mounted  the  chair. 
Ricardo  was  short — too  short  to  get  over  without  a  noisy 
scramble.  He  hesitated  an  instant;  she,  watchful,  bore 
rigidly  on  the  seat  with  her  beautiful  bare  arms,  while, 
light  and  sure,  he  used  the  back  of  the  chair  as  a  ladder. 
The  masses  of  her  brown  hair  fell  all  about  her  face. 

Footsteps  resounded  in  the  next  room,  and  Heyst's 
voice,  not  very  loud,  called  her  by  name. 

"Lena !" 

"Yes!  In  a  minute,"  she  answered  with  a  particular 
intonation  which  she  knew  would  prevent  Heyst  from 
coming  in  at  once. 


284  VICTORY 

When  she  looked  up,  Ricardo  had  vanished,  letting 
himself  down  outside  so  lightly  that  she  had  not  heard 
the  slightest  noise.  She  stood  up  then,  bewildered,  fright- 
ened, as  if  awakened  from  a  drugged  sleep,  with  heavy, 
downcast,  unseeing  eyes,  her  fortitude  tired  out,  her 
imagination  as  if  dead  within  her  and  unable  to  keep  her 
fear  alive. 

Heyst  moved  about  aimlessly  in  the  other  room.  This 
sound  roused  her  exhausted  wits.  At  once  she  began  to 
think,  hear,  see;  and  what  she  saw — or  rather  recog- 
nized, for  her  eyes  had  been  resting  on  it  all  the  time — 
was  Ricardo's  straw  slipper,  lost  in  the  scuffle,  lying  near 
the  bath.  She  had  just  time  to  step  forward  and  plant 
her  foot  on  it  when  the  curtain  shook,  and,  pushed  aside, 
disclosed  Heyst  in  the  doorway. 

Out  of  the  appeased  enchantment  of  the  senses  she 
had  found  with  him,  like  a  sort  of  bewitched  state,  his 
danger  brought  a  sensation  of  warmth  to  her  breast. 
She  felt  something  stir  in  there,  something  profound,  like 
a  new  sort  of  life. 

The  room  was  in  partial  darkness,  Ricardo  having  acci- 
dentally swung  the  pivoted  shutter  as  he  went  out  of  the 
window.  Heyst  peered  from  the  doorway. 

''Why,  you  haven't  done  your  hair  yet,"  he  said. 

"I  won't  stop  to  do  it  now.  I  sha'n't  be  long,"  she 
replied  steadily,  and  remained  still,  feeling  Ricardo's 
slipper  under  the  sole  of  her  foot. 

Heyst,  with  a  movement  of  retreat,  let  the  curtain  drop 
slowly.  On  the  instant  she  stooped  for  the  slipper,  and, 
with  it  in  her  hand,  spun  round  wildly,  looking  for  some 
hiding-place ;  but  there  was  no  such  spot  in  the  bare  room. 
The  chest,  the  leather  trunk,  a  dress  or  two  of  hers  hang- 
ing on  pegs — there  was  no  place  where  the  merest  hazard 
might  not  guide  Heyst's  hand  at  any  moment.  Her  wildly 
roaming  eyes  were  caught  by  the  half-closed  window.  She 
ran  to  it,  and  by  raising  herself  on  her  toes  was  able  to 


VICTORY  285 

reach  the  shutter  with  her  fingertips.  She  pushed  it  square, 
stole  back  to  the  middle  of  the  room,  and,  turning  about, 
swung  her  arm,  regulating  the  force  of  the  throw  so  as 
not  to  let  the  slipper  fly  too  far  out  and  hit  the  edge 
of  the  overhanging  eaves.  It  was  a  task  of  the  nicest 
judgment  for  the  muscles  of  those  round  arms,  still  quiv- 
ering from  the  deadly  wrestle  with  a  man,  for  that  brain, 
tense  with  the  excitement  of  the  situation  and  for  the 
unstrung  nerves  flickering  darkness  before  her  eyes.  At 
last  the  slipper  left  her  hand.  As  soon  as  it  passed  the 
opening,  it  was  out  of  her  sight.  She  listened.  She  did 
not  hear  it  strike  anything;  it  just  vanished,  as  if  it  had 
wings  to  fly  on  through  the  air.  Not  a  sound !  It  had 
gone  clear. 

Her  valiant  arms  hanging  close  against  her  side,  she 
stood  as  if  turned  into  stone.  A  faint  whistle  reached  her 
ears.  The  forgetful  Ricardo,  becoming  very  much  aware 
of  his  loss,  had  been  hanging  about  in  great  anxiety, 
which  was  relieved  by  the  appearance  of  the  slipper  flying 
from  under  the  eaves ;  and  now,  thoughtfully,  he  had  ven- 
tured a  whistle  to  put  her  mind  at  ease. 

Suddenly  the  girl  reeled  forward.  She  saved  herself 
from  a  fall  only  by  embracing  with  both  arms  one  of  the 
tall,  roughly  carved  posts  holding  the  mosquito  net  above 
the  bed.  For  a  long  time  she  clung  to  it,  with  her  fore- 
head leaning  against  the  wood.  One  side  of  her  loosened 
sarong  had  slipped  down  as  low  as  her  hip.  The  long 
brown  tresses  of  her  hair  fell  in  lank  wisps,  as  if  wet, 
almost  black  against  her  white  body.  Her  uncovered  flank, 
damp  with  the  sweat  of  anguish  and  fatigue,  gleamed 
coldly  with  the  immobility  of  polished  marble  in  the  hot, 
diffused  light  falling  through  the  window  above  her  head 
— a  dim  reflection  of  the  consuming,  passionate  blaze  of 
sunshine  outside,  all  aquiver  with  the  effort  to  set  the 
earth  on  fire,  to  burn  it  to  ashes. 


Heyst,  seated  at  the  table  with  his  chin  on  his  breast, 
raised  his  head  at  the  faint  rustle  of  Lena's  dress.  He  was 
startled  by  the  dead  pallor  of  her  cheeks,  by  something 
lifeless  in  her  eyes,  which  looked  at  him  strangely,  with- 
out recognition.  But  to  his  anxious  inquiries  she  answered 
reassuringly  that  there  was  nothing  the  matter  with  her, 
really.  She  had  felt  giddy  on  rising.  She  had  even  had  a 
moment  of  faintness,  after  her  bath.  She  had  to  sit  down 
to  wait  for  it  to  pass.  This  had  made  her  late  dressing. 

"I  didn't  try  to  do  my  hair.  I  didn't  want  to  keep  you 
waiting  any  longer,"  she  said. 

He  was  unwilling  to  press  her  with  questions  about  her 
health,  since  she  seemed  to  make  light  of  this  indisposi- 
tion. She  had  not  done  her  hair,  but  she  had  brushed  it, 
and  had  tied  it  with  a  ribbon  behind.  With  her  forehead 
uncovered,  she  looked  very  young,  almost  a  child,  a  care- 
worn child;  a  child  with  something  on  its  mind. 

What  surprised  Heyst  was  the  non-appearance  of 
Wang.  The  Chinaman  had  always  materialised  at  the  pre- 
cise moment  of  his  service,  neither  too  soon  nor  too  late. 
This  time  the  usual  miracle  failed.  What  was  the  meaning 
of  this? 

Heyst  raised  his  voice — a  thing  he  disliked  doing.  It 
was  promptly  answered  from  the  compound: 

''Ada,  Tuanr 

Lena,  leaning  on  her  elbow,  with  her  eyes  on  her  plate, 
did  not  seem  to  hear  anything.  When  Wang  entered  with 
a  tray,  his  narrow  eyes,  tilted  inward  by  the  prominence 

286 


VICTORY  287 

of  salient  cheekbones,  kept  her  under  steahhy  observation 
all  the  time.  Neither  the  one  nor  the  other  of  that  white 
couple  paid  the  slightest  attention  to  him  and  he  withdrew 
without  having  heard  them  exchange  a  single  word.  He 
squatted  on  his  heels  on  the  back  verandah.  His  China- 
man's mind,  very  clear  but  not  far-reaching,  was  made  up 
according  to  the  plain  reason  of  things,  such  as  it  appeared 
to  him  in  the  light  of  his  simple  feeling  for  self- 
preservation,  untrammelled  by  any  notions  of  romantic 
honour  or  tender  conscience.  His  yellow  hands,  lightly 
clasped,  hung  idly  between  his  knees.  The  graves  of 
Wang's  ancestors  were  far  away,  his  parents  were  dead, 
his  elder  brother  was  a  soldier  in  the  yamen  of  some 
Mandarin  away  in  Formosa.  No  one  near  by  had  a  claim 
on  his  veneration  or  his  obedience.  He  had  been  for  years 
a  labouring,  restless  vagabond.  His  only  tie  in  the  world 
was  the  Alfuro  woman,  in  exchange  for  whom  he  had 
given  away  some  considerable  part  of  his  hard-earned 
substance;  and  his  duty,  in  reason,  could  be  to  no  one 
but  himself. 

The  scuffle  behind  the  curtain  was  a  thing  of  bad  augury 
for  that  Number  One  for  whom  the  Chinaman  had  neither 
love  nor  dislike.  He  had  been  awed  enough  by  that  devel- 
opment to  hang  back  with  the  coffee-pot  till  at  last  the 
white  man  was  induced  to  call  him  in.  Wang  went  in 
with  curiosity.  Certainly,  the  white  woman  looked  as  if 
she  had  been  wrestling  with  a  spirit  which  had  managed 
to  tear  half  her  blood  out  of  her  before  letting  her  go. 
As  to  the  man,  Wang  had  long  looked  upon  him  as  being 
in  some  sort  bewitched;  and  now  he  was  doomed.  He 
heard  their  voices  in  the  room.  Heyst  was  urging  the  girl 
to  go  and  lie  down  again.  He  was  extremely  concerned. 
She  had  eaten  nothing. 

"The  best  thing  for  you.  You  really  must!" 
She  sat  listless,  shaking  her  head  from  time  to  time 
negatively,  as  if  nothing  could  be  any  good.  But  he  in- 


288  VICTORY 

sisted ;  she  saw  the  beginning  of  wonder  in  his  eyes,  and 
suddenly  gave  way. 

'Terhaps  I  had  better/' 

She  did  not  want  to  arouse  his  wonder,  which  would 
lead  him  straight  to  suspicion.  He  must  not  suspect ! 

Already,  with  the  consciousness  of  her  love  for  this 
man,  of  that  something  rapturous  and  profound  going 
beyond  the  mere  embrace,  there  was  born  in  her  a 
woman's  innate  mistrust  of  masculinity,  of  that  seductive 
strength  allied  to  an  absurd,  delicate  shrinking  from  the 
recognition  of  the  naked  necessity  of  facts,  which  never 
yet  frightened  a  woman  worthy  of  the  name.  She  had 
no  plan;  but  her  mind,  quieted  down  somewhat  by  the 
very  effort  to  preserve  outward  composure  for  his  sake, 
perceived  that  her  behaviour  had  secured,  at  any  rate,  a 
short  period  of  safety.  Perhaps  because  of  the  similarity 
of  their  miserable  origin  in  the  dregs  of  mankind,  she 
had  understood  Ricardo  perfectly.  He  would  keep  quiet 
for  a  time  now.  In  this  momentarily  soothing  certitude 
her  bodily  fatigue  asserted  itself,  the  more  overpoweringly 
since  its  cause  was  not  so  much  the  demand  of  her 
strength  as  the  awful  suddenness  of  the  stress  she  had 
had  to  meet.  She  would  have  tried  to  overcome  it  from 
the  mere  instinct  of  resistance,  if  it  had  not  been  for 
Heyst's  alternate  pleadings  and  commands.  Before  this 
eminently  masculine  fussing  she  felt  the  woman's  need 
to  give  way,  the  sweetness  of  surrender. 

''I  will  do  an^lhing  you  like,"  she  said. 

Getting  up,  she  was  surprised  by  a  wave  of  languid 
weakness  that  came  over  her,  embracing  and  enveloping 
her  like  warm  water,  with  a  noise  in  her  ears  as  of  a 
breaking  sea. 

"You  must  help  me  along,"  she  added  quickly. 

While  he  put  his  arm  round  her  waist — not  by  any 
means  an  uncommon  thing  for  him  to  do — she  found 
a  special  satisfaction  in  the   feeling  of  being  thus  sus- 


VICTORY  2S9 

tained.  She  abandoned  all  her  weight  to  that  encircling 
and  protecting  pressure,  while  a  thrill  went  through  her 
at  the  sudden  thought  that  it  was  she  who  would  have 
to  protect  him,  to  be  the  defender  of  a  man  who  was 
strong  enough  to  lift  her  bodily,  as  he  was  doing  even 
then  in  his  two  arms.  For  Heyst  had  done  this  as  soon 
as  they  had  crept  through  the  doorway  of  the  room.  He 
thought  it  was  quicker  and  simpler  to  carry  her  the  last 
step  or  two.  He  had  grown  really  too  anxious  to  be  aware 
of  the  effort.  He  lifted  her  high  and  deposited  her  on  the 
bed,  as  one  lays  a  child  on  its  side  in  a  cot.  Then  he  sat 
down  on  the  edge,  masking  his  concern  with  a  smile 
which  obtained  no  response  from  the  dreamy  immobility 
of  her  eyes.  But  she  sought  his  hand,  seized  it  eagerly ; 
and  while  she  was  pressing  it  with  all  the  force  of  which 
she  was  capable,  the  sleep  she  needed  overtook  her  sud- 
denly, overwhelmingly,  as  it  overtakes  a  child  in  a  cot, 
with  her  lips  parted  for  a  safe,  endearing  word  which 
she  had  thought  of  but  had  no  time  to  utter. 

The  usual  flaming  silence  brooded  over  Samburan. 

"What  in  the  world  is  this  new  mystery?"  murmured 
Heyst  to  himself,  contemplating  her  deep  slumber. 

It  was  so  deep,  this  enchanted  sleep,  that  when  some 
time  afterward  he  gently  tried  to  open  her  fingers  and 
free  his  hand,  he  succeeded  without  provoking  the  slight- 
est stir. 

"There  is  some  very  simple  explanation,  no  doubt," 
he  thought,  as  he  stole  out  into  the  living-room. 

Absent-mindedly  he  pulled  a  book  out  of  the  top  shelf, 
and  sat  down  with  it ;  but  even  after  he  had  opened  it  on 
his  knee,  and  had  been  staring  at  the  pages  for  a  time,  he 
had  not  the  slightest  idea  of  what  it  was  about.  He  stared 
and  stared  at  the  crowded,  parallel  lines.  It  was  only 
when,  raising  his  eyes  for  no  particular  reason,  he  saw 
Wang  standing  motionless  on  the  other  side  of- •the  table, 
that  he  regained  complete  control  of  his  faculties. 


290  VICTORY 

"Oh,  yes/'  he  said,  as  if  suddenly  reminded  of  a  for- 
gotten appointment  of  a  not  particularly  welcome  sort. 

He  waited  a  little,  and  then,  with  reluctant  curiosity, 
xorced  himself  to  ask  the  silent  Wang  what  he  had  to  say. 
He  had  some  idea  that  the  matter  of  the  vanished  re- 
volver would  come  up  at  last;  but  the  guttural  sounds 
which  proceeded  from  the  Chinaman  did  not  refer  to  that 
delicate  subject.  His  speech  was  concerned  with  cups, 
saucers,  plates,  forks,  and  knives.  All  these  things  had 
been  put  away  in  the  cupboards  on  the  back  verandah, 
where  they  belonged,  perfectly  clean,  "all  plopel.'*  Heyst 
wondered  at  the  scrupulosity  of  a  man  who  was  about 
to  abandon  him ;  for  he  was  not  surprised  to  hear  Wang 
conclude  the  account  of  his  stewardship  with  the  words : 

"Me  go  now.'* 

"Oh!  You  go  now?''  said  Heyst,  leaning  back,  his  book 
on  his  knees. 

"Yes.  Me  no  likee.  One  man,  two  man,  thlee  man — no 
can  do!  Me  go  now." 

"What's  frightening  you  away  like  this?"  asked  Heyst, 
while  through  his  mind  flashed  the  hope  that  something 
enlightening  might  come  from  that  being  so  unlike  him- 
self, taking  contact  with  the  world  with  a  simplicity  and 
directness  of  which  his  own  mind  was  not  capable. 
"Why?"  he  went  on.  "You  are  used  to  white  men.  You 
know  them  well." 

"Yes.  Me  savee  them,"  assented  Wang  inscrutably. 
"Me  savee  plenty." 

All  that  he  really  knew  was  his  own  mind.  He  had 
made  it  up  to  withdraw  himself  and  the  Alfuro  woman 
from  the  uncertainties  of  the  relations  which  were  going 
to  establish  themselves  between  those  white  men.  It  was 
Pedro  who  had  been  the  first  cause  of  Wang's  suspicion 
and  fear.  The  Chinaman  had  seen  wild  men.  He  had 
penetrated,  in  the  train  of  a  Chinese  pedlar,  up  one  or  two 
of  the  Bornean  rivers  into  the  country  of  the  Dyaks.  He 


VICTORY  29y 

had  also  been  in  the  interior  of  Mindanao,  where  there 
are  people  who  live  in  trees — savages,  no  better  than  ani- 
mals; but  a  hairy  brute  Hke  Pedro,  with  his  great  fangs 
and  ferocious  growls,  was  altogether  beyond  his  concep- 
tion of  anything  that  could  be  looked  upon  as  human. 
The  strong  impression  made  on  him  by  Pedro  was  the 
prime  inducement  which  had  led  Wang  to  purloin  the 
revolver.  Reflection  on  the  general  situation,  and  on  the 
insecurity  of  Number  One,  came  later,  after  he  had  ob- 
tained possession  of  the  revolver  and  of  the  box  of  car- 
tridges out  of  the  table  drawer  in  the  living-room. 

"Oh,  you  savee  plenty  about  white  men,"  Heyst  went  on 
in  a  slightly  bantering  tone,  after  a  moment  of  silent 
reflection  in  which  he  had  confessed  to  himself  that  the 
recovery  of  the  revolver  was  not  to  be  thought  of,  either 
by  persuasion  or  by  some  more  forcible  means.  *'You 
speak  in  that  fashion,  but  you  are  frightened  of  those 
white  men  over  there !" 

"Me  no  flightened,"  protested  Wang  raucously,  throw- 
ing up  his  head — which  gave  to  his  throat  a  more  strained, 
anxious  appearance  than  ever.  "Me  no  likee,"  he  added 
in  a  quieter  tone.  "Me  velly  sick.'' 

He  put  his  hand  over  the  region  under  the  breastbone. 

"That,"  said  Heyst,  serenely  positive,  "belong  one 
piecee  lie.  That  isn't  proper  man-talk  at  all.  And  after 
stealing  my  revolver,  too!" 

He  had  suddenly  decided  to  speak  about  it,  because 
this  frankness  could  not  make  the  situation  much  worse 
than  it  was.  He  did  not  suppose  for  a  moment  that 
Wang  had  the  revolver  anywhere  about  his  person;  and 
after  having  thought  the  matter  over,  he  had  arrived  at 
the  conclusion  that  the  Chinaman  never  meant  to  use  the 
weapon  against  him.  After  a  slight  start,  because  the 
direct  charge  had  taken  him  unawares,  Wang  tore  open 
the  front  of  his  jacket  with  a  convulsive  show  of  indig- 
nation. 


292  VICTORY 

"No  hab  got.  Look  see!"  he  mouthed  in  pretended 
anger. 

He  slapped  his  bare  chest  violently;  he  uncovered  his 
very  ribs,  all  astir  with  the  panting  of  outraged  virtue; 
his  smooth  stomach  heaved  with  indignation.  He  started 
his  wide  blue  breeches  flapping  about  his  yellow  calves. 
Heyst  watched  him  quietly. 

*'I  never  said  you  had  it  on  you,"  he  observed,  with- 
out raising  his  voice,  ''but  the  revolver  is  gone  from 
where  I  kept  it." 

"Me  no  savee  levolvel,"  Wang  said  obstinately. 

The  book  lying  open  on  Heyst's  knee  slipped  suddenly 
and  he  made  a  sharp  movement  to  catch  it  up.  Wang 
was  unable  to  see  the  reason  of  this  because  of  the  table, 
and  leaped  away  from  what  seemed  to  him  a  threatening 
symptom.  When  Heyst  looked  up,  the  Chinaman  was 
already  at  the  door  facing  the  room,  not  frightened,  but 
alert. 

"What's  the  matter?"  asked  Heyst. 

Wang  nodded  his  shaven  head  significantly  at  the  cur- 
tain closing  the  doorway  of  the  bedroom. 

"Me  no  likee,"  he  repeated. 

"What  the  devil  do  you  mean?"  Heyst  was  genuinely 
amazed.  "Don't  like  what?" 

Wang  pointed  a  long,  lemon-coloured  finger  at  the  mo- 
tionless folds. 

"Two,"  he  said. 

"Two  what?  I  don't  understand." 

"Suppose  you  savee,  you  no  like  that  fashion.  Me  savee 
plenty.  Me  go  now." 

Heyst  had  risen  from  his  chair,  but  Wang  kept  his 
ground  in  the  doorway  for  a  little  while  longer.  His 
almond-shaped  eyes  imparted  to  his  face  an  expression 
of  soft  and  sentimental  melancholy.  The  muscles  of  his 
throat  moved  visibly  while  he  uttered  a  distinct  and  gut- 


VICTORY  293 

tural    "Good-bye/*   and   vanished    from    Number    One's 
sight. 

The  Chinaman's  departure  altered  the  situation.  Heyst 
reflected  on  what  would  be  best  to  do  in  view  of  that 
fact.  For  a  long  time  he  hesitated;  then,  shrugging  his 
shoulders  wearily,  he  walked  out  on  the  verandah,  down 
the  steps,  and  continued  at  a  steady  gait,  with  a  thought- 
ful mien,  in  the  direction  of  his  guests'  bungalow.  He 
wanted  to  make  an  important  communication  to  them, 
and  he  had  no  other  object — least  of  all  to  give  them 
the  shock  of  a  surprise  call.  Nevertheless,  their  brutish 
henchman  not  being  on  watch,  it  was  Heyst's  fate  to 
startle  Mr.  Jones  and  his  secretary  by  his  sudden  appear- 
ance in  the  doorway.  Their  conversation  must  have  been 
very  interesting  to  prevent  them  from  hearing  the  visi- 
tor's approach.  In  the  dim.  room — ^the  shutters  were  kept 
constantly  closed  against  the  heat — Heyst  saw  them  start 
apart.  It  was  Mr.  Jones  who  spoke. 

"Ah,  here  you  are  again !  Come  in,  come  in !" 
Heyst,  taking  his  hat  off  in  the  doorway,  entered  the 
room. 


Waking  up  suddenly,  Lena  looked,  without  raising  her 
head  from  the  pillow,  at  the  room  in  which  she  was  alone. 
She  got  up  quickly,  as  if  to  counteract  the  awful  sinking 
of  her  heart  by  the  vigorous  use  of  her  limbs.  But  this 
sinking  was  only  momentar}\  Mistress  of  herself  from 
pride,  from  love,  from  necessity,  and  also  because  of  a 
woman's  vanity  in  self-sacrifice,  she  met  Heyst,  returning 
from  the  strangers'  bungalow,  with  a  clear  glance  and 
a  smile. 

The  smile  he  managed  to  answer ;  but,  noticing  that 
he  avoided  her  eyes,  she  composed  her  lips  and  lowered 
her  gaze.  For  the  same  reason  she  hastened  to  speak  to 
him  in  a  tone  of  indifterence,  which  she  put  on  without 
effort,  as  if  she  had  grown  adept  in  duplicity  since  sunrise. 

"You  have  been  over  there  again?** 

"I  have.  I  thought — but  you  had  better  know  first  that 
we  have  lost  Wang  for  good.*' 

She  repeated  "For  good?"  as  if  she  had  not  understood. 

'*For  good  or  evil — I  shouldn't  know  which  if  you  were 
to  ask  me.  He  has  dismissed  himself.  He's  gone." 

"You  expected  him  to  go,  though,  didn't  you?" 

Heyst  sat  down  on  the  other  side  of  the  table. 

"Yes.  I  expected  it  as  soon  as  I  discovered  that  he 
had  annexed  my  revolver.  He  says  he  hasn't  taken  it. 
That's  of  course.  A  Chinaman  would  not  see  the  sense 
of  confessing  under  any  circumstances.  To  deny  any 
charge  is  a  principle  of  right  conduct;  but  he  hardly 
expected  to  be  believed.  He  was  a  little  enigmatic  at  the 
last,  Lena.  He  startled  me." 

294 


VICTORY  295 

Heyst  paused.  The  girl  seemed  absorbed  in  her  own 
thoughts. 

"He  startled  me,"  repeated  Heyst.  She  noted  the  anxiety 
in  his  tone,  and  turned  her  head  slightly  to  look  at  him 
across  the  table. 

"It  must  have  been  something — ^to  startle  you"  jhe  said. 
In  the  depth  of  her  parted  lips,  like  a  ripe  pomegranate, 
there  was  a  gleam  of  white  teeth. 

"It  was  only  a  single  word — and  some  of  his  gestures. 
He  had  been  making  a  good  deal  of  noise.  I  wonder  we 
didn't  wake  you  up.  How  soundly  you  can  sleep!  I  say, 
do  you  feel  all  right  now?" 

"As  fresh  as  can  be,"  she  said,  treating  him  to  another 
deep  gleam  of  a  smile.  "I  heard  no  noise,  and  Fm  glad 
of  it.  The  way  he  talks  in  his  harsh  voice  frightens  me. 
I  don't  like  all  these  foreign  people." 

"It  was  just  before  he  went  away — ^bolted  out,  I 
should  say.  He  nodded  and  pointed  at  the  curtain  of  our 
room.  He  knew  you  were  there,  of  course.  He  seemed 
to  think — he  seemed  to  try  to  give  me  to  understand  that 
you  were  in  special — well,  danger.  You  know  how  he 
talks." 

She  said  nothing;  she  made  no  sound,  only  the  faint 
tinge  of  colour  ebbed  out  of  her  cheek. 

"Yes,"  Heyst  went  on.  "He  seemed  to  try  to  warn  me. 
That  must  have  been  it.  Did  he  imagine  I  had  forgotten 
your  existence?  The  only  word  he  said  was  *two.*  It 
sounded  so,  at  least.  Yes,  'two' — and  that  he  didn't  like  it." 

"What  does  that  mean?"  she  whispered. 

"We  know  what  the  word  two  means,  don't  we,  Lena? 
We  are  two.  Never  were  such  a  lonely  two  out  of  the 
world,  my  dear!  He  might  have  tried  to  remind  me  that 
he  himself  has  a  woman  to  look  after.  Why  are  you  so 
pale,  Lena?" 

"Am  I  pale?"  she  asked  negligently. 

"You  are."  Heyst  was  really  anxious. 


296  VICTORY 

"Well,  it  isn't  from  fright,"  she  protested  truthfully. 

Indeed,  what  she  felt  was  a  sort  of  horror  which  left 
her  absolutely  in  the  full  possession  of  all  her  faculties; 
more  difficult  to  bear,  perhaps,  for  that  reason,  but  not 
paralysing  to  her  fortitude. 

Heyst  in  his  turn  smiled  at  her. 

"I  really  don't  know  that  there  is  any  reason  to  be 
frightened." 

"I  mean  I  am  not  frightened  for  myself." 

*'I  believe  you  are  very  plucky,"  he  said.  The  colour 
had  returned  to  her  face.  "I,"  continued  Heyst,  "am  so 
rebellious  to  outward  impressions  that  I  can't  say  that 
much  about  myself.  I  don't  react  with  sufficient  distinct- 
ness." He  changed  his  tone.  "You  know  I  went  to  see 
those  men  first  thing  this  morning." 

"I  know.  Be  careful!"  she  murmured. 

"I  wonder  how  one  can  be  careful!  I  had  a  long  talk 
w^ith — ^but  I  don't  believe  you  have  seen  them.  One  of 
them  is  a  fantastically  thin,  long  person,  apparently  ailing ; 
I  shouldn't  wonder  if  he  were  really  so.  He  makes  rather 
a  point  of  it  in  a  mysterious  manner.  I  imagine  he  must 
have  suffered  from  tropical  fevers,  but  not  so  much  as 
he  tries  to  make  out.  He's  what  people  would  call  a 
gentleman.  He  seemed  on  the  point  of  volunteering  a  tale 
of  his  adventures — for  which  I  didn't  ask  him — but  re- 
marked that  it  was  a  long  story ;  some  other  time,  perhaps. 

"  *I  suppose  you  would  like  to  know  who  I  am?'  he 
asked  me. 

"I  told  him  I  would  leave  it  to  him,  in  a  tone  which, 
between  gentlemen,  could  have  left  no  doubt  in  his  mind. 
He  raised  himself  on  his  elbow — ^he  was  lying  down  on  the 
camp-bed — and  said : 

"  '1  am  he  who  is '  " 

Lena  seemed  not  to  be  listening;  but  when  Heyst 
paused,  she  turned  her  head  quickly  to  him.  He  took  it 
for  a  movement  of  inquiry,  but  in  this  he  was  wrong. 


VICTORY  29/ 

A  great  vagueness  enveloped  her  impressions,  but  all  her 
energy  was  concentrated  on  the  struggle  that  she  wanted 
to  take  upon  herself,  in  a  great  exaltation  of  love  and 
self-sacrifice,  which  is  woman's  sublime  faculty;  alto- 
gether on  herself,  every  bit  of  it,  leaving  him  nothing, 
not  even  the  knowledge  of  what  she  did,  if  that  were 
possible.  She  would  have  liked  to  lock  him  up  by  some 
stratagem.  Had  she  known  of  some  means  to  put  him 
to  sleep  for  days  she  would  have  used  incantations  or 
philtres  without  misgivings.  He  seemed  to  her  too  good 
for  such  contacts,  and  not  sufficiently  equipped.  This  last 
feeling  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  material  fact  of  the 
revolver  being  stolen.  She  could  hardly  appreciate  that 
fact  at  its  full  value. 

Observing  her  eyes  fixed  and  as  if  sightless — for  the 
conicentration  on  her  purpose  took  all  expression  out  of 
them — Hey  St  imagined  it  to  be  the  effect  of  a  great  mental 
effort. 

"No  use  asking  me  what  he  meant,  Lena ;  I  don't  know, 
and  I  did  not  ask  him.  The  gentleman,  as  I  have  told  you 
before,  seems  devoted  to  mystification.  I  said  nothing,  and 
he  laid  down  his  head  again  on  the  bundle  of  rugs  he  uses 
for  a  pillow.  He  affects  a  state  of  great  weakness,  but 
I  suspect  that  he's  perfectly  capable  of  leaping  to  his 
feet  if  he  likes.  Having  been  ejected,  he  said,  from  his 
proper  social  sphere  because  he  had  refused  to  conform 
to  certain  usual  conventions,  he  was  a  rebel  now,  and  was 
coming  and  going  up  and  down  the  earth.  As  I  really 
did  not  want  to  listen  to  all  this  nonsense,  I  told  him 
that  I  had  heard  that  sort  of  story  about  somebody  else 
before.  His  grin  is  really  ghastly.  He  confessed  that  I 
was  very  far  from  the  sort  of  man  he  expected  to  meet. 
Then  he  said : 

"  'As  to  me,  I  am  no  blacker  than  the  gentleman  you 
are  thinking  of,  and  I  have  neither  more  nor  less  deter- 
mination.' " 


298  VICTORY 

Hey  St  looked  across  the  table  at  Lena.  Propped  on 
her  elbows,  and  holding  her  head  in  both  hands,  she 
moved  it  a  little  with  an  air  of  understanding. 

''Nothing  could  be  plainer,  eh?"  said  Heyst  grimly. 
"Unless,  indeed,  this  is  his  idea  of  a  pleasant  joke;  for, 
when  he  finished  speaking,  he  burst  into  a  long,  loud 
laugh.  I  didn't  join  him !" 

"I  wish  you  had,"  she  breathed  out. 

"I  didn't  join  him.  It  did  not  occur  to  me.  I  am  not 
much  of  a  diplomatist.  It  would  probably  have  been  wise ; 
for,  indeed,  I  believe  he  had  said  more  than  he  meant 
to  say,  and  was  trying  to  take  it  back  by  this  affected 
jocularity.  Yet,  when  one  thinks  of  it,  diplomacy  without 
force  in  the  background  is  but  a  rotten  reed  to  lean  upon. 
And  I  don't  know  whether  I  could  have  done  it  if  I  had 
thought  of  it.  I  don't  know.  It  would  have  been  against 
the  grain.  Could  I  have  done  it?  I  have  lived  too  long 
within  myself,  watching  the  mere  shadows  and  shades 
of  life.  To  deceive  a  man  on  some  issue  which  could 
be  decided  quicker  by  his  destruction  while  one  is  dis- 
armed, helpless,  without  even  the  power  to  run  away — 
no!  That  seems  to  me  too  degrading.  And  yet  I  have 
you  here !  I  have  your  very  existence  in  my  keeping. 
What  do  you  say,  Lena?  Would  I  be  capable  of  throw- 
ing you  to  the  lions  to  save  my  dignity?" 

She  got  up,  walked  quickly  round  the  table,  posed 
herself  on  his  knees  lightly,  throwing  oae  arm  round  his 
neck,  and  whispered  in  his  ear : 

"You  may,  if  you  like.  And  maybe  that's  the  only  way 
I  would  consent  to  leave  you.  For  something  like  that. 
If  it  were  something  no  bigger  than  your  little  finger." 

She  gave  him.  a  light  kiss  on  the  lips  and  was  gone 
before  he  could  detain  her.  She  regained  her  seat  and 
propped  her  elbows  again  on  the  table.  It  was  hard  to 
believe  that  she  had  moved  from  the  spot  at  all.  The 
fleeting  weight  of  her  body  on  his  knees,  the  hug  round 


VICTORY  299 

his  neck,  the  whisper  in  his  ear,  the  kiss  on  his  Hps,  might 
have  been  the  unsubstantial  sensations  of  a  dream  invad- 
ing the  reaHty  of  waking  hf e ;  a  sort  of  charming  mirage 
in  the  barren  aridity  of  his  thoughts.  He  hesitated  to 
speak  till  she  said,  business-like: 

"Well.  And  what  then?" 

Heyst  gave  a  start. 

"Oh,  yes.  I  didn't  join  him.  I  let  him  have  his  laugh 
out  by  himself.  He  was  shaking  all  over,  like  a  merry 
skeleton,  under  a  cotton  sheet  he  was  covered  with — I 
believe  in  order  to  conceal  the  revolver  that  he  had  in 
his  right  hand.  I  didn't  see  it,  but  I  have  a  distinct  im- 
pression it  was  there  in  his  fist.  As  he  had  not  been  looking 
at  me  for  some  time,  but  staring  into  a  certain  part  of 
the  room,  I  turned  my  head  and  saw  a  hairy,  wild  sort 
of  creature  which  they  take  about  with  them,  squatting  on 
its  heels  in  the  angle  of  the  walls  behind  me.  He  wasn't 
there  when  I  came  in.  I  didn't  like  the  notion  of  that 
watchful  monster  behind  my  back.  If  I  had  been  less 
at  their  mercy,  I  should  certainly  have  changed  my  posi- 
tion. As  things  are  now,  to  move  would  have  been  a  mere 
weakness.  So  I  remained  where  I  was.  The  gentleman  on 
the  bed  said  he  could  assure  me  of  one  thing;  and  that 
was  that  his  presence  here  was  no  more  morally  repre- 
hensible than  mine. 

"  *We  pursue  the  same  ends,'  he  said,  'only  perhaps  I 
pursue  them  with  more  openness  than  you — with  more 
simplicity.' 

"That's  what  he  said,"  Heyst  went  on,  after  looking 
at  Lena  in  a  sort  of  inquiring  silence.  "I  asked  him  if 
he  knew  beforehand  that  I  was  living  here;  but  he  only 
gave  me  a  ghastly  grin.  I  didn't  press  him  for  an  answer, 
Lena.  I  thought  I  had  better  not." 

On  her  smooth  forehead  a  ray  of  light  always  seemed 
to  rest.  Her  loose  hair,  parted  in  the  middle,  covered  the 
hands  sustaining  her  head.  She  seemed  spellbound  by  the 


300  VICTORY 

interest  of  the  narrative.  Heyst  did  not  pause  long.  He 
managed  to  continue  his  relation  smoothly  enough,  be- 
ginning afresh  with  a  piece  of  comment. 

"He  would  have  lied  impudently — and  I  detest  being 
told  a  lie.  It  makes  me  vmcomfortable.  It's  pretty  clear 
that  I  am  not  fitted  for  the  affairs  of  the  wide  world. 
But  I  did  not  want  him  to  think  that  I  accepted  his  pres- 
ence too  meekly;  so  I  said  that  his  comings  or  goings 
on  the  earth  were  none  of  my  business,  of  course,  except 
that  I  had  a  natural  curiosity-  to  know  when  he  would 
find  it  convenient  to  resume  them. 

"He  asked  me  to  look  at  the  state  he  was  in.  Had  I 
been  all  alone  here,  as  they  think  I  am,  I  should  have 
laughed  at  him.  But  not  being  alone — I  say,  Lena,  you 
are  sure  you  haven't  shown  yourself  where  you  could  be 
seen  ?" 

"Certain,"  she  said  promptly. 

He  looked  relieved. 

"You  imderstand,  Lena,  that  when  I  ask  you  to  keep 
so  strictly  out  of  sight,  it  is  because  you  are  not  for  them 
to  look  at — ^to  talk  about.  My  poor  Lena!  I  can't  help 
tliat  feeling.  Do  you  understand  it?" 

She  moved  her  head  slightly  in  a  manner  that  was 
neither  afiirmative  nor  negative. 

"People  will  have  to  see  me  some  day,"  she  said. 

"I  wonder  how  long  it  will  be  possible  for  you  to  keep 
i)ut  of  sight!"  murmured  Heyst  thoughtfully.  He  bent 
over  the  table.  "Let  me  finish  telling  you.  I  asked  him 
pointblank  what  it  was  he  wanted  with  me;  he  appeared 
extremely  unwilling  to  come  to  the  point.  It  was  not 
really  so  pressing  as  all  that,  he  said.  His  secretar}%  who 
was  in  fact  his  partner,  was  not  present,  having  gone 
down  to  the  wharf  to  look  at  their  boat.  Finally  the  fellow 
proposed  that  he  should  put  off  a  certain  communication 
he  had  to  make  till  the  day  after  to-morrow.  I  agreed; 
but  I  also  told  him  that  I  was  not  at  all  anxious  to  hear  it 


VICTORY  301 

I  had  no  conception  in  what  way  his  affairs  could  con- 
cern me. 

"  'Ah,  Mr.  Heyst/  he  said,  'you  and  I  have  much  more 
in  common  than  you  think.'  " 

Heyst  struck  the  table  with  his  fist  unexpectedly. 

"It  was  a  jeer ;  I  am  sure  it  was !" 

He  seemed  ashamed  of  this  outburst  and  smiled  faintly 
into  the  motionless  eyes  of  the  girl. 

"What  could  I  have  done — even  if  I  had  had  my 
pockets  full  of  revolvers?" 

She  made  an  appreciative  sign. 

"Killing's  a  sin,  sure  enough,"  she  murmured. 

"I  went  away,"  Heyst  continued.  "I  left  him  there, 
lying  on  his  side  with  his  eyes  shut.  When  I  got  back 
here,  I  found  you  looking  ill.  What  was  it,  Lena?  You 
did  give  me  a  scare !  Then  I  had  the  interview  with  Wang 
while  you  rested.  You  were  sleeping  quietly.  I  sat  here 
to  consider  all  these  things  calmly,  to  try  to  penetrate 
their  inner  meaning  and  their  outward  bearing.  It  struck 
me  that  the  two  days  we  have  before  us  have  the  character 
of  a  sort  of  truce.  The  more  I  thought  of  it,  the  more  I  felt 
that  this  was  tacitly  understood  between  Jones  and  my- 
self. It  was  to  our  advantage,  if  anything  can  be  of  advan- 
tage to  people  caught  so  completely  unawares  as  we  are. 
Wang  was  gone.  He,  at  any  rate,  had  declared  himself, 
but  as  I  did  not  know  what  he  might  take  it  into  his  head 
to  do,  I  thought  I  had  better  warn  these  people  that  I 
was  no  longer  responsible  for  the  Chinaman.  I  did  not 
want  Mr.  Wang  making  some  move  which  would  precipi- 
tate the  action  against  us.  Do  you  see  my  point  of  view?" 

She  made  a  sign  that  she  did.  All  her  soul  was  wrapped 
in  her  passionate  determination,  in  an  exalted  belief  in 
herself — in  the  contemplation  of  her  amazing  opportunity 
to  win  the  certitude,  the  eternity,  of  that  man's  love. 

"I  never  saw  two  men,"  Heyst  was  saying,  "more 
affected  by  a  piece  of  information  than  Jones  and  his 


302  VICTORY 

secretary,  who  was  back  in  the  bungalow  by  then.  They 
had  not  heard  me  come  up.  I  told  them  I  was  sorry  to 
intrude. 

''  'Not  at  all !  Not  at  all,"  said  Jones. 

"The  secretary  backed  away  into  a  corner  and  watched 
me  like  a  wary  cat.  In  fact,  they  both  were  visibly  on  their 
guard. 

"  *I  am  come,'  I  told  them,  *to  let  you  know  that  my 
servant  has  deserted — ^gone  off.' 

*'At  first  they  looked  at  each  other  as  if  they  had  not 
understood  what  I  was  saying ;  but  very  soon  they  seemed 
quite  concerned. 

"  *You  mean  to  say  your  Chink's  cleared  out?'  said 
Ricardo,  coming  forward  from  his  corner.  'Like  this — 
all  at  once?  What  did  he  do  it  for?' 

"I  said  that  a  Chinaman  had  always  a  simple  and  pre- 
cise reason  for  what  he  did,  but  that  to  get  such  a  reason 
out  of  him  was  not  so  easy.  All  he  had  told  me,  I  said, 
was  that  he  'didn't  like.' 

"They  looked  extremely  disturbed  at  this.  Didn't  like 
what,  they  wanted  to  know. 

"  'The  looks  of  you  and  your  party,'  I  told  Jones. 

"  ^Nonsense !'  he  cried  out ;  and  immediately  Ricardo, 
the  short  man,  struck  in. 

"  'Told  you  tJmtt  What  .did  he  take  you  for,  sir — an 
infant?  Or  do  you  take  us  for  kids? — meaning  no  offence. 
Come,  I  bet  you  will  tell  us  next  that  you've  missed  some- 
thing.' 

"  'I  didn't  mean  to  tell  you  anything  of  the  sort,'  I 
said,  'but  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  so.' 

"He  slapped  his  thigh. 

"  'Thought  so.  What  do  you  think  of  this  trick,  gov- 
ernor?' 

"Jones  made  some  sort  of  sign  to  him,  and  then  that 
extraordinary  cat-faced  associate  proposed  that  he  and 


VICTORY  303 

their  servant  should  come  out  and  help  me  to  catch  or 
kill  the  Chink. 

"My  object,  I  said,  was  not  to  get  assistance.  I  did 
not  intend  to  chase  the  Chinaman.  I  had  come  only  to 
warn  them  that  he  was  armed,  and  that  he  really  objected 
to  their  presence  on  the  island.  I  wanted  them  to  under- 
stand that  I  was  not  responsible  for  anything  that  might 
happen. 

"  *Do  you  mean  to  tell  us,'  asked  Ricardo,  'that  there 
is  a  crazy  Chink  with  a  six-shooter  broke  loose  on  this 
island,  and  that  you  don*t  care  ?' 

"Strangely  enough,  they  did  not  seem  to  believe  my 
story.  They  were  exchanging  significant  looks  all  the  time. 
Ricardo  stole  up  close  to  his  principal;  they  had  a  con- 
fabulation together,  and  then  something  happened  which 
I  did  not  expect.  It's  rather  awkward,  too. 

"Since  I  would  not  have  their  assistance  to  get  hold  of 
the  Chink  and  recover  my  property,  the  least  they  could 
do  was  to  send  me  their  servant.  It  was  Jones  who  said 
that,  and  Ricardo  backed  up  the  idea. 

"  'Yes,  yes — let  our  Pedro  cook  for  all  hands  in  your 
compound.  He  isn't  so  bad  as  he  looks.  That's  what  we 
will  do !' 

"He  bustled  out  of  the  room  to  the  verandah,  and  let 
out  an  air-splitting  whistle  for  their  Pedro.  Having  heard 
the  brute's  answering  howl,  Ricardo  ran  back  into  the 
room. 

"  'Yes,  Mr.  Heyst.  This  will  do  capitally,  Mr.  Heyst. 
You  just  direct  him  to  do  whatever  you  are  accustomed 
to  have  done  for  you  in  the  way  of  attendance.  See?' 

"Lena,  I  confess  to  you  that  I  was  taken  completely  by 
surprise.  I  had  not  expected  anything  of  the  sort.  I  don't 
know  what  I  expected.  I  am  so  anxious  about  you  that 
I  can't  keep  away  from  these  infernal  scoundrels.  And 
only  three  months  ago  I  would  not  have  cared.  I  would 
have  defied  their  scoundrelism  as  much  as  I  have  scorned 


304  VICTORY 

all  the  other  intrusions  of  life.  But  now  I  have  you !  You 
stole  into  my  life,  and " 

Heyst  drew  a  deep  breath.  The  girl  gave  him  a  quick, 
wide-eyed  glance. 

"Ah!  That's  what  you  are  thinking  of — ^that  you  have 
me!" 

It  was  impossible  to  read  the  thoughts  veiled  by  her 
steady  grey  eyes,  to  penetrate  the  meaning  of  her  silences, 
her  words,  and  even  her  embraces.  He  used  to  come  out 
of  her  very  arms  with  the  feeling  of  a  baffled  man. 

"If  I  haven't  you,  if  you  are  not  here,  then  where  are 
you?"  cried  Heyst.  "You  understand  me  very  well!" 

She  shook  her  head  a  little.  Her  red  lips,  at  which  he 
looked  now,  her  lips  as  fascinating  as  the  voice  that  came 
out  of  them,  uttered  the  words : 

"I  hear  what  you  say;  but  what  does  it  mean?" 

"It  means  that  I  could  lie  and  perhaps  cringe  for  your 
sake." 

"No!  No!  Don't  you  ever  do  that,"  she  said  in  haste, 
while  her  eyes  glistened  suddenly.  "You  would  hate  me 
for  it  afterwards!" 

"Hate  you?"  repeated  Heyst,  who  had  recalled  his 
polite  manner.  "No!  You  needn't  consider  the  extremity 
of  the  improbable — as  yet.  But  I  will  confess  to  you  that 
I — how  shall  I  call  it? — ^that  I  dissembled.  First  I  dis- 
sembled my  dismay  at  the  unforeseen  result  of  my  idiotic 
diplomacy.  Do  you  understand,  my  dear  girl?" 

It  was  evident  that  she  did  not  understand  the  word. 
Heyst  produced  his  playful  smile,  which  contrasted  oddly 
with  the  worried  character  of  his  whole  expression.  His 
temples  seemed  to  have  sunk  in,  his  face  looked  a  little 
leaner. 

"A  diplomatic  statement,  Lena,  is  a  statement  of  which 
everything  is  true  but  the  sentiment  which  seems  to 
prompt  it.  I  have  never  been  diplomatic  in  my  relation 
with  mankind — not  from  regard  for  its  feelings,  but  from 


VICTORY  305 

a  certain  regard  for  my  own.  Diplomacy  doesn't  go  well 
with  consistent  contempt.  I  cared  little  for  life  and  still 
less  for  death." 

"Don't  talk  like  that!" 

"I  dissembled  my  extreme  longing  to  take  these  wan- 
dering scoundrels  by  their  throats,"  he  went  on.  "I  have 
only  two  hands — I  wish  I  had  a  hundred  to  defend  you — 
and  there  were  three  throats.  By  that  time  their  Pedro 
was  in  the  room  too.  Had  he  seen  me  engaged  with  their 
two  throats,  he  would  have  been  at  mine  like  a  fierce  dog, 
or  any  other  savage  and  faithful  brute.  I  had  no  difficulty 
in  dissembling  my  longing  for  the  vulgar,  stupid,  and 
hopeless  argument  of  fight.  I  remarked  that  I  really  did 
not  want  a  servant.  I  couldn't  think  of  depriving  them 
of  their  man's  services ;  but  they  would  not  hear  me.  They 
had  made  up  their  minds. 

"  *We  shall  send  him  over  at  once,'  Ricardo  said,  'to 
start  cooking  dinner  for  everybody.  I  hope  you  won't 
mind  me  coming  to  eat  in  with  you  in  your  bungalow ;  and 
we  will  send  the  governor's  dinner  over  to  him  here/ 

"I  could  do  nothing  but  hold  my  tongue  or  bring  on  a 
quarrel — some  manifestation  of  their  dark  purpose,  which 
we  have  no  means  to  resist.  Of  course,  you  may  remain 
invisible  this  evening;  but  with  that  atrocious  brute 
prowling  all  the  time  at  the  back  of  the  house,  how  long 
can  your  presence  be  concealed  from  these  men?" 

Heyst's  distress  could  be  felt  in  his  silence.  The  girl's 
head,  sustained  by  her  hands  buried  in  the  thick  masses 
of  her  hair,  had  a  perfect  immobility. 

"You  are  certain  you  have  not  been  seen  so  far?"  he 
asked  suddenly. 

The  motionless  head  spoke. 

"How  can  I  be  certain?  You  told  me  you  wanted  me  to 
keep  out  of  the  way.  I  kept  out  of  the  way.  I  didn't  ask 
your  reason.  I  thought  you  didn't  want  people  to  know 
that  you  had  a  girl  like  me  about  you." 


|o6  VICTORY 

"What?  Ashamed?"  cried  Heyst. 

"It  isn't  what's  right,  perhaps — I  mean  for  you — is  it?" 

Heyst  Hfted  his  hands,  reproachfully  courteous. 

"I  look  upon  it  as  so  very  much  right  that  I  couldn't 
bear  the  idea  of  any  other  than  sympathetic,  respectful 
eyes  resting  on  you.  I  disliked  and  mistrusted  these  fel- 
lows from  the  first.  Didn't  you  understand?" 

*'Yes;  I  did  keep  out  of  sight,"  she  said. 

A  silence  fell.  At  last  Heyst  stirred  slightly. 

''All  this  is  of  very  little  importance  now,"  he  said  with 
a  sigh.  ''This  is  a  question  of  something  infinitely  worse 
than  mere  looks  and  thoughts,  however  base  and  con- 
temptible. As  I  have  told  you,  I  met  Ricardo's  suggestions 
by  silence.  As  I  was  turning  away  he  said : 

"  'If  you  happen  to  have  the  key  of  that  storeroom  of 
yours  on  you,  ]^lr.  Heyst,  you  may  just  as  well  let  me 
have  it;  I  will  give  it  to  our  Pedro.' 

"I  had  it  on  me,  and  I  tendered  it  to  him  without  speak- 
ing. The  hairy  creature  was  at  the  door  by  then,  and 
caught  the  key,  which  Ricardo  threw  to  him,  better  than 
any  trained  ape  could  have  done.  I  came  away.  All  the 
time  I  had  been  thinking  anxiously  of  you,  whom  I  had 
left  asleep,  alone  here,  and  apparently  ill." 

Heyst  interrupted  himself,  with  a  listening  turn  of  his 
head.  He  had  heard  the  faint  sound  of  sticks  being 
snapped  in  the  compound.  He  rose  and  crossed  the  room 
to  look  out  of  the  back  door. 

"And  here  the  creature  is,"  he  said,  returning  to  the 
table.  "Here  he  is,  already  attending  to  the  fire.  Oh,  my 
dear  Lena!" 

She  had  followed  him  with  her  eyes.  She  watched  him 
go  out  on  the  front  verandah  cautiously.  He  lowered 
stealthily  a  couple  of  screens  that  hung  between  the 
columns,  and  remained  outside  very  still,  as  if  interested 
by  something  on  the  open  ground.  Meantime  she  had  risen 


VICTORY  307 

in  her  turn,  to  take  a  peep  into  the  compound.  Heyst, 
glancing  over  his  shoulder,  saw  her  returning  to  her  seat. 
He  beckoned  to  her,  and  she  continued  to  move,  crossing 
the  shady  room,  pure  and  bright  in  her  white  dress,  her 
hair  loose,  with  something  of  a  sleep-walker  in  her  un- 
hurried motion,  in  her  extended  hand,  in  the  sightless 
effect  of  her  grey  eyes  luminous  in  the  half  light.  He  had 
never  seen  such  an  expression  in  her  face  before.  It  had 
dreaminess  in  it,  intense  attention,  and  something  like 
sternness.  Arrested  in  the  doorway  by  Heyst's  extended 
arm,  she  seemed  to  wake  up,  flushed  faintly — ^and  this 
flush,  passing  off,  carried  away  with  it  the  strange  trans- 
figuring mood.  With  a  courageous  gesture  she  pushed 
back  the  heavy  masses  of  her  hair.  The  light  clung  to  her 
forehead.  Her  deHcate  nostrils  quivered.  Heyst  seized  her 
arm  and  whispered  excitedly: 

"Slip  out  here,  quickly!  The  screens  will  conceal  you. 
Only  you  must  mind  the  stair-space.  They  are  actually 
out — I  mean  the  other  two.  You  had  better  see  them  be- 
fore you " 

She  made  a  barely  perceptible  movement  of  recoil, 
checked  at  once,  and  stood  still.  Heyst  released  her  arm. 

"Yes,  perhaps  I  had  better,"  she  said  with  unnatural 
deliberation,  and  stepped  out  on  the  verandah  to  stand 
close  by  his  side. 

Together,  one  on  each  side  of  the  screen,  they  peeped 
between  the  edge  of  the  canvas  and  the  verandah-post 
entwined  with  creepers.  A  great  heat  ascended  from  the 
sun-smitten  ground,  in  an  ever-rising  wave,  as  if  from 
some  secret  store  of  earth's  fiery  heart ;  for  the  sky  was 
growing  cooler  already,  and  the  sun  had  declined  sufli- 
ciently  for  the  shadows  of  Mr.  Jones  and  his  henchman 
to  be  projected  towards  the  bungalow  side  by  side — one 
infinitely  slender,  the  other  short  and  broad. 

The  two  visitors  stood  still  and  gazed.  To  keep  up  the 
fiction  of  his  invalidism,  Mr.  Jones,  the  gentleman,  leaned 


3o8  VICTORY 

on  the  arm  of  Ricardo,  the  secretan-,  the  top  of  whose 
hat  just  came  up  to  his  governor's  shoulder. 

"Do  you  see  them?"  Heyst  whispered  into  the  girl's 
ear.  "Here  they  are,  the  envoys  of  the  outer  world.  Here 
they  are  before  you— evil  intelligence,  instinctive  savager\% 
arm  in  arm.  The  brute  force  is  at  the  back.  A  trio  of  fit- 
ting envoys  perhaps — but  what  about  the  welcome?  Sup- 
pose I  were  armed,  could  I  shoot  those  two  down  w^here 
they  stand?  Could  I?" 

Without  moving  her  head,  the  girl  felt  for  Heyst's 
hand,  pressed  it,  and  thereafter  did  not  let  it  go.  He  con- 
tinued, bitterly  playful: 

"I  don't  know.  I  don't  think  so.  There  is  a  strain  in  me 
w^hich  lays  me  under  an  insensate  obligation  to  avoid  even 
the  appearance  of  murder.  I  have  never  pulled  a  trigger 
or  lifted  my  hand  on  a  man,  even  in  self-defence." 

The  suddenly  tightened  grip  of  her  hand  checked  him. 

"They  are  making  a  move,"  she  murmured. 

"Can  they  be  thinking  of  coming  here?"  Heyst  won- 
dered anxiously. 

"Xo,  they  aren't  coming  this  way,"  she  said ;  and  there 
was  another  pause.  "They  are  going  back  to  their  hou^e," 
she  reported  finally. 

After  watching  them  a  little  longer,  she  let  go  Heyst's 
hand  and  moved  away  from  the  screen.  He  followed  her 
into  the  room. 

"You  have  seen  them  now,"  he  began.  "Think  what  it 
was  to  me  to  see  them  land  in  the  dusk,  fantasms  from 
the  sea — apparitions,  chimseras !  And  they  persist.  That's 
the  worst  of  it — ^they  persist.  They  have  no  right  to  be — 
but  they  are.  They  ought  to  have  aroused  my  fur\'.  But 
I  have  refined  ever\i:hing  away  by  this  time — ^anger,  in- 
dignation, scorn  itself.  Nothing's  left  but  disgust.  Since 
you  have  told  me  of  that  abominable  calumny,  it  has  be- 
come immense — it  extends  even  to  myself."  He  looked  up 
at  her. 


VICTORY  309 

"But  luckily  I  have  you.  And  if  only  Wang  had  not 
carried  off  that  miserable  revolver — ^yes,  Lena,  here  we 
are,  we  two !" 

She  put  both  her  hands  on  his  shoulders  and  looked 
straight  into  his  eyes.  He  returned  her  penetrating  gaze. 
It  baffled  him.  He  could  not  pierce  the  grey  veil  of  her 
eyes;  but  the  sadness  of  her  voice  thrilled  him  pro- 
foundly. 

"You  are  not  reproaching  me?''  she  asked  slowly. 

"Reproach  ?  What  a  word  between  us !  It  could  only  be 
myself — but  the  mention  of  Wang  has  given  me  an  idea. 
I  have  been,  not  exactly  cringing,  not  exactly  lying,  but 
still  dissembling.  You  have  been  hiding  yourself,  to  please 
me,  but  still  you  have  been  hiding.  All  this  is  very  digni- 
fied. Why  shouldn't  we  try  begging  now.?  A  noble  art! 
Yes,  Lena,  we  must  go  out  together.  I  couldn't  think  of 
leaving  you  alone,  and  I  must — ^yes,  I  must  speak  to 
Wang.  We  shall  go  and  seek  that  man,  who  knows  what 
he  wants  and  how  to  secure  what  he  wants.  We  will  go 
at  once!" 

"Wait  till  I  put  my  hair  up,"  she  agreed  instantly,  and 
vanished  behind  the  curtain. 

When  the  curtain  had  fallen  behind  her,  she  turned  her 
head  back  with  an  expression  of  infinite  and  tender  con- 
cern for  him — for  him  whom  she  could  never  hope  to 
understand,  and  whom  she  was  afraid  she  could  never 
satisfy ;  as  if  her  passion  were  of  a  hopelessly  lower  qual- 
ity, unable  to  appease  some  exalted  and  delicate  desire  of 
his  superior  soul.  In  a  couple  of  minutes  she  reappeared. 
They  left  the  house  by  the  door  of  the  compound,  and 
passed  within  three  feet  of  the  thunderstruck  Pedro,  with- 
out even  looking  in  his  direction.  He  rose  from  stooping 
over  a  fire  of  sticks,  and,  balancing  himself  clumsily,  un- 
covered his  enormous  fangs  in  gaping  astonishment.  Then 
suddenly  he  set  off  rolling  on  his  bandy  legs  to  impart  to 
his  masters  the  astonishing  discovery  of  a  woman. 


VI 

As  LUCK  would  have  it,  Ricardo  was  lounging  alone  on 
the  verandah  of  the  former  counting-house.  He  scented 
some  new  development  at  once,  and  ran  down  to  meet  the 
trotting,  bear-like  figure.  The  deep,  growling  noises  it 
made,  though  they  had  only  a  very  remote  resemblance 
to  the  Spanish  language,  or  indeed  to  any  sort  of  human 
speech,  were  from  long  practice  quite  intelligible  to  Mr. 
Jones's  secretary.  Ricardo  was  rather  surprised.  He  had 
imagined  that  the  girl  would  continue  to  keep  out  of  sight. 
That  line  apparently  was  given  up.  He  did  not  mistrust 
her.  How  could  he?  Indeed,  he  could  not  think  of  her 
existence  calmly. 

He  tried  to  keep  her  image  out  of  his  mind  so  that  he 
should  be  able  to  use  its  powers  with  some  approach  to 
that  coolness  which  the  complex  nature  of  the  situation 
demanded  from  him,  both  for  his  own  sake  and  as  the 
faithful  follower  of  plain  Mr.  Jones,  gentleman. 

He  collected  his  wits  and  thought.  This  was  a  change 
of  policy,  probably  on  the  part  of  Heyst.  If  so,  what  could 
it  mean  ?  A  deep  fellow !  Unless  it  was  her  doing ;  in  which 
case — h'm — all  right !  Must  be.  She  would  know  what  she 
was  doing.  Before  him  Pedro,  lifting  his  feet  alternately, 
swayed  to  and  fro  sideways — his  usual  attitude  of  ex- 
pectation. His  little  red  eyes,  lost  in  the  mass  of  hair,  were 
motionless.  Ricardo  stared  into  them  with  calculated  con- 
tempt and  said  in  a  rough,  angry  voice : 

"Woman !  Of  course  there  is.  We  know  that  without 
you!"  He  gave  the  tame  monster  a  push.  "Git!  Vamos! 

.310 


VICTORY  311 

Waddle!  Get  back  and  cook  the  dinner!  Which  way  did 
they  go,  then?'' 

Pedro  extended  a  huge,  hairy  forearm  to  show  the 
direction,  and  went  off  on  his  bandy  legs.  Advancing  a 
few  steps,  Ricardo  was  just  in  time  to  see,  above  some 
bushes,  two  white  helmets  moving  side  by  sidq  in  the  clear- 
ing. They  disappeared.  Now  that  he  had  managed  to  keep 
Pedro  from  informing  the  governor  that  there  was  a 
woman  on  the  island,  he  could  indulge  in  speculation  as 
to  the  movements  of  these  people.  His  attitude  towards 
Mr.  Jones  had  undergone  a  spiritual  change,  of  which 
he  himself  was  not  yet  fully  aware. 

That  morning,  before  tiffin,  after  his  escape  from  the 
Heyst  bungalow,  completed  in  such  an  inspiring  way  by 
the  recovery  of  the  slipper,  Ricardo  had  made  his  way  to 
their  allotted  house,  reeling  as  he  ran,  his  head  in  a  whirl. 
He  was  wildly  excited  by  visions  of  inconceivable  prom- 
ise. He  waited  to  compose  himself  before  he  dared  to 
meet  the  governor.  On  entering  the  room,  he  found  Mr. 
Jones  sitting  on  the  camp  bedstead  like  a  tailor  on  his 
board,  cross-legged,  his  long  back  against  the  wall. 

"I  say,  sir !  You  aren't  going  to  tell  me  you  are  bored  ?" 

"Bored  ?  No !  Where  the  devil  have  you  been  all  this 
time?" 

"Observing — ^watching — nosing  around.  What  else?  I 
knew  you  had  company.  Have  you  talked  freely,  sir?" 

"Yes,  I  have,"  muttered  Mr.  Jones. 

"Not  downright  plain,  sir?" 

"No.  I  wished  you  had  been  here.  You  loaf  all  the 
morning,  and  now  you  come  in  out  of  breath.  What's  the 
matter?" 

"I  haven't  been  wasting  my  time  out  there,"  said 
Ricardo.  "Nothing's  the  matter.  I — I — might  have  hurried 
a  bit."  He  was  in  truth  still  panting ;  only  it  was  not  with 
running,  but  with  the  tumult  of  thoughts  and  sensations 
long  repressed,  which  had  been  set  free  by  the  adventure 


312  VICTORY 

of  the  morning.  He  was  almost  distracted  by  them  now. 
He  forgot  himself  in  the  maze  of  possibilities  threatening 
and  inspiring.  "And  so  you  had  a  long  talk?"  he  said,  to 
gain  time. 

''Confound  you!  The  sun  hasn't  affected  your  head, 
has  it?  Why  are  you  staring  at  me  like  a  basilisk?" 

"Beg  pardon,  sir.  Wasn't  aware  I  stared,"  Ricardo 
apologized  good-humouredly.  "The  sun  might  well  affect 
a  thicker  skull  than  mine.  It  blazes.  Phew !  What  do  you 
think  a  fellow  is,  sir — a  salamander?" 

"You  ought  to  have  been  here,"  observed  Air.  Jones. 

"Did  the  beast  give  any  signs  of  wanting  to  prance?" 
asked  Ricardo  quickly,  with  absolutely  genuine  anxiety. 
"It  wouldn't  do,  sir.  You  must  play  him  easy  for  at  least 
a  couple  of  days,  sir.  I  have  a  plan.  I  have  a  notion  that 
I  can  find  out  a  lot  in  a  couple  of  days." 

"You  have?  In  what  way?" 

"Why,  by  watching,"  Ricardo  answered  slowly. 

Mr.  Jones  grunted. 

"Nothing  new,  that.  Watch,  eh?  Why  not  pray  a  little, 
too?" 

"Ha,  ha,  ha!  That's  a  good  one,"  burst  out  the  secre- 
tary, fixing  Mr.  Jones  with  mirthless  eyes. 

The  latter  dropped  the  subject  indolently. 

"Oh,  you  may  be  certain  of  at  least  two  days,"  he  said. 

Ricardo  recovered  himself.  His  eyes  gleamed  volup- 
tuously. 

"We'll  pull  this  off  yet — clean — whole — right  through, 
if  you  will  only  trust  me,  sir." 

"I  am  trusting  you  right  enough,"  said  Mr.  Jones.  "It's 
your  interest,  too." 

And.  indeed,  Ricardo  was  truthful  enough  in  his  state- 
ment. He  did  absolutely  believe  in  success  now.  But  he 
couldn't  tell  his  governor  that  he  had  intelligences  in  the 
enemy's  camp.  It  wouldn't  do  to  tell  him  of  the  girl.  Devil 


VICTORY  313 

only  knew  what  he  would  do  if  he  learned  there  was  a 
woman  about.  And  how  could  he  begin  to  tell  of  it?  He 
couldn't  confess  his  sudden  escapade. 

"We'll  pull  it  off,  sir/'  he  said,  with  perfectly  acted 
cheerfulness.  He  experienced  gusts  of  awful  joy  expand- 
ing in  his  heart  and  hot  like  a  fanned  flame. 

"We  must,"  pronounced  Mr.  Jones.  "This  thing,  Mar- 
tin, is  not  like  our  other  tries.  I  have  a  peculiar  feeling 
about  this.  It's  a  different  thing.  It's  a  sort  of  test." 

Ricardo  was  impressed  by  the  governor's  manner;  for 
the  first  time  a  hint  of  passion  could  be  detected  in  him. 
But  also  a  word  he  used,  the  word  "test,"  had  struck  him 
as  particularly  significant  somehow.  It  was  the  last  word 
uttered  during  that  morning's  conversation.  Immediately 
afterwards  Ricardo  went  out  of  the  room.  It  was  impos- 
sible for  him  to  keep  still.  An  elation  in  which  an  extraor- 
dinary softness  mingled  with  savage  triumph  would  not 
allow  it.  It  prevented  his  thinking,  also.  He  walked  up 
and  down  the  verandah  far  into  the  afternoon,  eyeing  the 
other  bungalow  at  every  turn.  It  gave  no  sign  of  being 
inhabited.  Once  or  twice  he  stopped  dead  short  and  looked 
down  at  his  left  slipper.  Each  time  he  chuckled  audibly. 
His  restlessness  kept  on  increasing  till  at  last  it  frightened 
him.  He  caught  hold  of  the  balustrade  of  the  verandah 
and  stood  still,  smiling  not  at  his  thoughts,  but  at  the  strong 
sense  of  life  within  him.  He  abandoned  himself  to  it  care- 
lessly, even  recklessly.  He  cared  for  no  one,  friend  or 
enemy.  At  that  moment  Mr.  Jones  called  him  by  name 
from  within.  A  shadow  fell  on  the  secretary's  face. 

"Here,  sir,"  he,  answered ;  but  it  was  a  moment  before 
he  could  make  up  his  mind  to  go  in. 

He  found  his  governor  on  his  feet.  Mr.  Jones  was  tired 
of  lying  down  when  there  was  no  necessity  for  it.  His 
slender  form,  gliding  about  the  room,  came  to  a  stand- 
still. 


314  VICTORY 

"IVe  been  thinking,  Martin,  of  something  you  sug- 
gested. At  the  time  it  did  not  strike  me  as  practical;  but 
on  reflection  it  seems  to  me  that  to  propose  a  game  is  as 
good  a  way  as  any  to  let  him  understand  that  the  time  has 
come  to  disgorge.  It's  less — how  should  I  say? — vulgar. 
He  will  know  what  it  means.  It's  not  a  bad  form  to  give 
to  the  business — which  in  itself  is  crude,  Martin,  crude." 

''Want  to  spare  his  feelings?"  jeered  the  secretary  in 
such  a  bitter  tone  that  Mr.  Jones  was  really  surprised. 

"Why,  it  was  your  own  notion,  confound  you!" 

"Who  says  it  wasn't?"  retorted  Ricardo  sulkily.  "But 
I  am  fairly  sick  of  this  crawling.  No !  No !  Get  the  exact 
bearings  of  his  swag  and  then  a  rip  up.  That's  plenty  good 
enough  for  him." 

His  passions  being  thoroughly  aroused,  a  thirst  for 
blood  w?s  allied  in  him  with  a  thirst  for  tenderness — yes, 
tenderness.  A  sort  of  anxious,  melting  sensation  pervaded 
and  softened  his  heart  when  he  thought  of  that  girl — one 
of  his  own  sort.  And  at  the  same  time  jealousy  started 
gnawing  at  his  breast  as  the  image  of  Heyst  intruded  it- 
self on  his  fierce  anticipation  of  bliss. 

"The  crudeness  of  your  ferocity  is  positively  gross, 
Martin,"  Mr.  Jones  said  disdainfully.  "You  don't  even 
understand  my  purpose.  I  mean  to  have  some  sport  out 
of  him.  Just  try  to  imagine  the  atmosphere  of  the  game — 
the  fellow  handling  the  cards — the  agonising  mockery  of 
it!  Oh,  I  shall  appreciate  this  greatly.  Yes,  let  him  lose 
his  money  instead  of  being  forced  to  hand  it  over.  You,  of 
course,  would  shoot  him  at  once,  but  I  shall  enjoy  the  re- 
finement and  the  jest  of  it.  He's  a  man  of  the  best  society. 
I've  been  hounded  out  of  my  sphere  by  people  very  much 
like  that  fellow.  How  enraged  and  humiliated  he  will  be! 
I  promise  myself  some  exquisite  moments  while  watching 
his  play." 

"Ay,  and  suppose  he  suddenly  starts  prancing !  He  may 
not  appreciate  the  fun." 


VICTORY  '  31S 

"I  mean  you  to  be  present,"  Mr.  Jones  remarked 
calmly. 

''Well,  as  long  as  I  am  free  to  plug  him  or  rip  him  up 
whenever  I  think  the  time  has  come,  you  are  welcome  to 
your  bit  of  sport,  sir.  I  sha'n*t  spoil  it." 


VII 

It  was  at  this  precise  moment  of  their  conversation  that 
Heyst  had  intruded  on  Mr.  Jones  and  his  secretary  with 
his  warning  about  Wang,  as  he  had  related  to  Lena.  When 
he  left  them,  the  two  looked  at  each  other  in  wondering 
silence.  Mr.  Jones  was  the  first  to  break  it. 

"I  say,  Martin!" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"What  does  this  mean?" 

"It's  some  move.  Blame  me  if  I  can  understand!" 

"Too  deep  for  you  ?"  Mr.  Jones  inquired  drily. 

"It's  nothing  but  some  of  his  infernal  impudence," 
growled  the  secretary.  "You  don'*t  believe  all  that  about 
the  Chink,  do  you,  sir  ?  'Tain't  true." 

"It  isn't  necessary  for  it  to  be  true  to  have  a  meaning 
for  us.  It's  the  why  of  his  coming  to  tell  us  this  tale  that's 
important." 

"Do  you  think  he  made  it  up  to  frighten  us?"  asked 
Ricardo. 

Mr.  Jones  scowled  at  him  thoughtfully. 

"The  man  looked  worried,"  he  muttered,  as  if  to  him- 
self. "Suppose  that  Chinaman  has  really  stolen  his  money ! 
The  man  looked  very  worried." 

"Nothing  but  his  artfulness,  sir,"  protested  Ricardo 
earnestly,  for  the  idea  was  too  disconcerting  to  entertain. 
"Is  it  likely  that  he  would  have  trusted  a  Chink  with 
enough  knowledge  to  make  it  possible?"  he  argued 
warmly.  "Why,  it's  the  very  thing  that  he  would  keep 
close  about.  There's  something  else  there.  Ay,  but  what?" 

"Ha,  ha,  ha!"   Mr.  Jones  let  out  a  ghostly,  squeaky 

316 


VICTORY  317 

laugh.  "I've  never  been  placed  in  such  a  ridiculous  posi- 
tion before,"  he  went  on,  with  a  sepulchral  equanimity  of 
tone.  "It's  you,  Martin,  who  dragged  me  into  it.  However, 
it's  my  fault  too.  I  ought  to — but  I  was  really  too  bored 
to  use  my  brain,  and  yours  is  not  to  be  trusted.  You  are 
a  hothead !" 

A  blasphemous  exclamation  of  grief  escaped  from 
Ricardo.  Not  to  be  trusted!  Hothead!  He  was  almost 
tearful. 

"Haven't  I  heard  you,  sir,  saying  more  than  twenty 
times  since  we  got  fired  out  from  Manila  that  we  should 
want  a  lot  of  capital  to  work  the  East  Coast  with?  You 
were  always  telling  me  that  to  prime  properly  all  them 
officials  and  Portuguese  scallawags  we  should  have  to  lose 
heavily  at  first.  Weren't  you  always  worrying  about  some 
means  of  getting  hold  of  a  good  lot  of  cash?  It  wasn't 
to  be  got  hold  of  by  allowing  yourself  to  become  bored  in 
that  rotten  Dutch  town  and  playing  a  twopenny  game  with 
confounded  beggarly  bank-clerks  and  such  like.  Well,  I've 
brought  you  here,  where  there  is  cash  to  be  got — and  a 
big  lot,  to  a  moral,"  he  added  through  his  set  teeth. 

Silence  fell.  Each  of  them  was  staring  into  a  different 
corner  of  the  room.  Suddenly,  with  a  slight  stamp  of  his 
foot,  Mr.  Jones  made  for  the  door.  Ricardo  caught  him 
up  outside. 

"Put  your  arm  through  mine,  sir,"  he  begged  him 
gently  but  firmly.  "No  use  giving  the  game  away.  An 
invalid  may  well  come  out  for  a  breath  of  fresh  air  after 
the  sun's  gone  down  a  bit.  That's  it,  sir.  But  where  do  you 
want  to  go  ?  Why  did  you  come  out,  sir  ?" 

Mr.  Jones  stopped  short. 

"I  hardly  know  myself,"  he  confessed  in  a  hollow 
mutter,  staring  intently  at  the  Number  One  bungalow. 
"It's  quite  irrational,"  he  declared  in  a  still  lower  tone. 

"Better  go  in,  sir,"  suggested  Ricardo.  "What's  that? 
Those  screens  weren't  down  before.   He's  spying  from 


3i8  VICTORY 

behind  them  now,  I  bet — the  dodging,  artful,  plotting 
beast !" 

"Why  not  go  over  there  and  see  if  we  can't  get  to  the 
bottom  of  this  game?"  was  the  unexpected  proposal 
uttered  by  Mr.  Jones.  ''He  will  have  to  talk  to  us." 

Ricardo  repressed  a  start  of  dismay,  but  for  a  moment 
could  not  speak.  He  only  pressed  the  governor's  hand  to 
his  side  instinctively. 

"No,  sir.  What  could  you  say?  Do  you  expect  to  get 
to  the  bottom  of  his  lies?  How  could  you  make  him  talk? 
It  isn't  time  yet  to  come  to  grips  with  that  gent.  You 
don't  think  I  would  hang  back,  do  you?  His  Chink,  of 
course,  I'll  shoot  like  a  dog  the  moment  I  catch  sight  of 
him;  but  as  to  that  Mr.  Blasted  Heyst,  the  time  isn't  yet. 
My  head's  cooler  just  now  than  yours.  Let's  go  in  again. 
Why,  we  are  exposed  here.  Suppose  he  took  it  into  his 
head  to  let  oif  a  gun  on  us!  He's  an  unaccountable, 
'yporcritical  skunk." 

Allowing  himself  to  be  persuaded,  Mr.  Jones  returned 
to  his  seclusion.  The  secretary,  however,  remained  on  the 
verandah — for  the  purpose,  he  said,  of  seeing  whether 
that  Chink  wasn't  sneaking  around ;  in  which  case  he  pro- 
posed to  take  a  long  shot  at  the  galoot  and  chance  the 
consequences.  His  real  reason  was  that  he  wanted  to  be 
alone,  away  from  the  governor's  deep-sunk  eyes.  He  felt  a 
sentimental  desire  to  indulge  his  fancies  in  solitude.  A 
great  change  had  come  over  Mr.  Ricardo  since  that  morn- 
ing. A  whole  side  of  him  which  from  prudence,  from 
necessity,  from  loyalty,  had  been  kept  dormant,  was 
aroused  now,  colouring  his  thoughts  and  disturbing  his 
mental  poise  by  the  vision  of  such  staggering  consequences 
as,  for  instance,  the  possibility  of  an  active  conflict  with 
his  governor.  The  appearance  of  the  monstrous  Pedro 
with  his  news  drew  Ricardo  out  of  a  feeling  of  dreami- 
ness wrapped  up  in  a  sense  of  impending  trouble.  A 
woman?  Yes,  there  was  one;  and  it  made  all  the  dif- 


VICTORY  319 

ference.  After  driving  away  Pedro,  and  watching  the 
white  helmets  of  Heyst  and  Lena  vanish  among  the  bushes 
he  stood  lost  in  meditation. 

"Where  could  they  be  off  to  like  this?"  he  mentally 
asked  himself. 

The  answer  found  by  his  speculative  faculties  on  their 
utmost  stretch  was — ^to  meet  that  Chink.  For  in  the  deser- 
tion of  Wang  Ricardo  did  not  believe.  It  was  a  lying  yarn, 
the  organic  part  of  a  dangerous  plot.  Heyst  had  gone  to 
combine  some  fresh  move.  But  then  Ricardo  felt  sure  that 
the  girl  was  with  him — the  girl  full  of  pluck,  full  of 
sense,  full  of  understanding;  an  ally  of  his  own  kind! 

He  went  indoors  briskly.  Mr.  Jones  had  resumed  his 
cross-legged  pose  at  the  head  of  the  bed,  with  his  back 
against  the  wall. 

"Anything  new  ?'*  ^ 

"No,  sir." 

Ricardo  walked  about  the  room  as  if  he  had  no  care 
in  the  world.  He  hummed  snatches  of  song.  Mr.  Jones 
raised  his  waspish  eyebrows  at  the  sound.  The  secretary 
got  down  on  his  knees  before  an  old  leather  trunk,  and, 
rummaging  in  there,  brought  out  a  small  looking-glass. 
He  fell  to  examining  his  physiognomy  in  it  with  silent 
absorption. 

"I  think  I'll  shave,"  he  decided,  getting  up. 

He  gave  a  sidelong  glance  to  the  governor,  and  repeated 
it  several  times  during  the  operation,  which  did  not  take 
long,  and  even  afterwards,  when,  after  putting  away  the 
implements,  he  resumed  his  walking,  humming  more 
snatches  of  unknown  songs.  Mr.  Jones  preserved  a  com- 
plete immobility,  his  thin  lips  compressed,  his  eyes  veiled. 
His  face  was  like  a  carving. 

"So  you  would  like  to  try  your  hand  at  cards  with  that 
skunk,  sir?"  said  Ricardo,  stopping  suddenly  and  rubbing 
his  hands. 

Mr.  Jones  gave  no  sign  of  having  heard  anything. 


320  VICTORY 

''Well,  why  not?  Why  shouldn't  he  have  the  experi- 
ence? You  remember  in  that  Mexican  town — what's  its 
name? — the  robber  fellow  they  caught  in  the  mountains 
and  condemned  to  be  shot?  He  played  cards  half  the 
night  with  the  jailer  and  the  sheriff.  Well,  this  fellow  is 
condemned,  too.  He  must  give  you  your  game.  Hang  it  all, 
a  gentleman  ought  to  have  some  little  relaxation !  And  you 
have  been  uncommonly  patient,  sir." 

"You  are  uncommonly  volatile  all  of  a  sudden,"  Mr. 
Jones  remarked  in  a  bored  voice.  "What's  come  to  you  ?" 

The  secretary  hummed  for  a  while,  and  then  said: 

"I'll  try  to  get  him  over  here  for  you  to-night,  after 
dinner.  If  I  ain't  here  myself,  don't  you  worry,  sir.  I  shall 
be  doing  a  bit  of  nosing  round — see?" 

"I  see,"  sneered  Mr.  Jones  languidly.  "But  what  do  yoii 
expect  to  see  in  the  dark?" 

Ricardo  made  no  answer,  and  after  another  turn  or 
two  slipped  out  of  the  room.  He  no  longer  felt  com- 
fortable alone  with  the  governor. 


VIII 

Meantime  Heyst  and  Lena,  walking  rather  fast,  ap- 
proached Wang's  hut.  Asking  the  girl  to  wait,  Heyst 
ascended  the  little  ladder  of  bamboos  giving  access  to  the 
door.  It  was  as  he  had  expected.  The  smoky  interior  was 
empty,  except  for  a  big  chest  of  sandalwood  too  heavy  for 
hurried  removal.  Its  lid  was  thrown  up,  but  whatever  it 
might  have  contained  was  no  longer  there.  All  Wang's 
possessions  were  gone.  Without  tarrying  in  the  hut,  Heyst 
came  back  to  the  girl,  who  asked  no  questions,  with  her 
strange  air  of  knowing  or  understanding  everything. 

"Let  us  push  on,"  he  said. 

He  went  ahead,  the  rustle  of  her  white  skirt  following 
him  into  the  shades  of  the  forest,  along  the  path  of  their 
usual  walk.  Though  the  air  lay  heavy  between  straight 
denuded  trunks,  the  sunlit  patches  moved  on  the  ground, 
and  raising  her  eyes  Lena  saw  far  above  her  head  the 
flutter  of  the  leaves,  the  surface  shudder  on  the  mighty 
limbs  extended  horizontally  in  the  perfect  immobility  of 
patience.  Twice  Heyst  looked  over  his  shoulder  at  her. 
Behind  the  readiness  of  her  answering  smile  there  was  a 
fund  of  devoted,  concentrated  passion,  burning  with  the 
hope  of  a  more  perfect  satisfaction.  They  passed  the  spot 
where  it  was  their  practice  to  turn  towards  the  barren 
summit  of  the  central  hill.  Heyst  held  steadily  on  his  way 
towards  the  upper  limit  of  the  forest.  The  moment  they 
left  its  shelter,  a  breeze  enveloped  them,  and  a  great  cloud, 
racing  over  the  sun,  threw  a  peculiar  sombre  tint  over 
everything.  Heyst  pointed  up  a  precipitous,  rugged  path 
clinging  to  the  side  of  the  hill.  It  ended  in  a  barricade  of 

321 


522  VICTORY 

felled  trees,  a  primitively  conceived  obstacle  which  must 
have  cost  much  labour  to  erect  at  just  that  spot. 

"This,"  Heyst  explained  in  his  urbane  tone,  "is  a  barrier 
against  the  march  of  civilisation.  The  poor  folk  over 
there  did  not  like  it,  as  it  appeared  to  them  in  the  shape 
of  my  company — a  great  step  forsvard,  as  some  people 
used  to  call  it  with  mistaken  confidence.  The  advanced 
foot  has  been  drawn  back,  but  the  barricade  remains." 

They  went  on  climbing  slowly.  The  cloud  had  driven 
over,  leaving  an  added  brightness  on  the  face  of  the 
world. 

'Tt's  a  very  ridiculous  thing,"  Heyst  went  on ;  "but  then 
it  is  the  product  of  honest  fear — fear  of  the  unknown,  of 
the  incomprehensible.  It's  pathetic,  too,  in  a  way.  And  L 
heartily  wish,  Lena,  that  we  were  on  the  other  side  of  it." 

"Oh,  stop,  stop !"  she  cried,  seizing  his  arm. 

The  face  of  the  barricade  they  were  approaching  had 
been  piled  up  with  a  lot  of  fresh-cut  branches.  The  leaves 
were  still  green.  A  gentle  breeze,  sweeping  over  the  top, 
stirred  them  a  little;  but  what  had  startled  the  girl  w^as 
the  discover}'  of  several  spear-blades  protruding  from  the 
mass  of  foliage.  She  had  made  them  out  suddenly.  They 
did  not  gleam,  but  she  saw  them  with  extreme  distinct- 
ness, very  still,  very  vicious  to  look  at. 

"You  had  better  let  me  go  forward  alone.  Lena,"  said 
Heyst. 

She  tugged  persistently  at  his  arm.  but  after  a  time, 
during  which  he  never  ceased  to  look  smilingly  into  her 
terrified  eyes,  he  ended  by  disengaging  himself. 

"It's  a  sign  rather  than  a  demonstration,"  he  argued 
persuasively.  "Just  wait  here  a  moment.  I  promise  not  to 
approach  near  enough  to  be  stabbed." 

As  in  a  nightmare  she  watched  Heyst  go  up  the  few 
yards  of  the  path  as  if  he  never  meant  to  stop;  and  she 
heard  his  voice,  like  voices  heard  in  dreams,  shouting 
unknown  w^ords  in  an  unearthly  tone.   Heyst  was  only 


VICTORY  323 

demanding  to  see  Wang.  He  was  not  kept  waiting  very 
long.  Recovering  from  the  first  flurry  of  her  fright,  Lena 
noticed  a  commotion  in  the  green  top-dressing  of  the  bar- 
ricade. She  exhaled  a  sigh  of  reHef  when  the  spear-blades 
retreated  out  of  sight,  sliding  inward — ^the  horrible  things ! 
In  a  spot  facing  Heyst  a  pair  of  yellow  hands  parted  the 
leaves,  and  a  face  filled  the  small  opening — a  face  with 
very  noticeable  eyes.  It  was  Wang's  face,  of  course,  with 
no  suggestion  of  a  body  belonging  to  it,  like  those  card- 
board faces  at  which  she  remembered  gazing  as  a  child  in 
the  window  of  a  certain  dim  shop  kept  by  a  mysterious 
little  man  in  Kingsland  Road.  Only  this  face,  instead  of 
mere  holes,  had  eyes  which  blinked.  She  could  see  the 
beating  of  the  eyelids.  The  hands  on  each  side  of  the 
face,  keeping  the  boughs  apart,  also  did  not  look  as  if 
they  belonged  to  any  real  body.  One  of  them  was  holding 
a  revolver — a  weapon  which  she  recognised  merely  by 
intuition,  never  having  seen  such  an  object  before. 

She  leaned  her  shoulders  against  the  rock  of  the  per- 
pendicular hillside  and  kept  her  eyes  on  Heyst,  with  com- 
parative composure,  since  the  spears  were  not  menacing 
him  any  longer.  Beyond  the  rigid  and  motionless  back  he 
presented  to  her,  she  saw  Wang's  unreal  cardboard  face 
moving  its  thin  lips  and  grimacing  artificially.  She  was 
too  far  down  the  path  to  hear  the  dialogue,  carried  on  in 
an  ordinary  voice.  She  waited  patiently  for  its  end.  Her 
shoulders  felt  the  warmth  of  the  rock;  now  and  then  a 
whiff  of  cooler  air  seemed  to  slip  down  upon  her  head 
from  above ;  the  ravine  at  her  feet,  choked  full  of  vegeta- 
tion, emitted  the  faint,  drowsy  hum  of  insect  life.  Every- 
thing was  very  quiet.  She  failed  to  notice  the  exact  mo- 
ment when  Wang's  head  vanished  from  the  foliage,  taking 
the  unreal  hands  away  with  it.  To  her  horror,  the  spear- 
blades  came  gliding  slowly  out.  The  very  hair  on  her  head 
stirred;  but  before  she  had  time  to  cry  out,  Heyst,  who 
seemed  rooted  to  the  ground,  turned  round  abruptly  and 


324  VICTORY 

began  to  move  towards  her.  His  great  moustaches  did  not 
quite  hide  an  ugly  but  irresolute  smile ;  and  when  he  had 
come  down  near  enough  to  touch  her,  he  burst  out  into  a 
harsh  laugh : 

"Ha,  ha,  ha  r 

She  looked  at  him,  uncomprehending.  He  cut  short  his 
laugh  and  said  curtly: 

**We  had  better  go  down  as  we  came." 

She  followed  him  into  the  forest.  The  advance  of  the 
afternoon  had  filled  it  with  gloom.  Far  away  a  slant  of 
light  between  the  trees  closed  the  view.  All  was  dark  be- 
yond. Heyst  stopped. 

"No  reason  to  hurry,  Lena/'  he  said  in  his  ordinary, 
serenely  polite  tones.  "We  return  unsuccessful.  I  suppose 
you  know,  or  at  least  can  guess,  what  was  my  object  in 
coming  up  there?" 

"No,  I  can't  guess,  dear,"  she  said,  and  smiled,  noticing 
with  emotion  that  his  breast  was  heaving  as  if  he  had 
been  out  of  breath.  Nevertheless,  he  tried  to  command  his 
speech,  pausing  only  a  little  between  the  words. 

"No?  I  went  up  to  find  Wang.  I  went  up" — he  gasped 
again  here,  but  this  was  for  the  last  time — "I  made  you 
come  with  me  because  I  didn't  like  to  leave  you  unpro- 
tected in  the  proximity  of  those  fellows."  Suddenly  he 
snatched  his  cork  helmet  off  his  head  and  dashed  it  on  the 
ground.  "No!"  he  cried  roughly.  "All  this  is  too  unreal 
altogether.  It  isn't  to  be  borne!  I  can't  protect  you!  I 
haven't  the  power." 

He  glared  at  her  for  a  moment,  then  hastened  after  his 
hat,  which  had  bounded  away  to  some  distance.  He  came 
back  looking  at  her  face,  which  was  very  white. 

"I  ought  to  beg  your  pardon  for  these  antics,"  he  said, 
adjusting  his  hat.  "A  movement  of  childish  petulance !  In- 
deed, I  feel  very  much  like  a  child  in  my  ignorance,  in  my 
powerlessness,  in  my  want  of  resource,  in  everything  ex- 


VICTORY  325 

cept  in  the  dreadful  consciousness  of  some  evil  hanging 
over  your  head^ — ^yours !" 

"It's  you  they  are  after/'  she  murmured. 

"No  doubt,  but  unfortunately " 

"Unfortunately— what  ?" 

"Unfortunately,  I  have  not  succeeded  with  Wang,"  he 
said.  "I  failed  to  move  his  Celestial  heart — ^that  is,  if  there 
is  such  a  thing.  He  told  me  with  horrible  Chinese  reason- 
ableness that  he  could  not  let  us  pass  the  barrier,  because 
we  should  be  pursued.  He  doesn't  like  fights.  He  gave  me 
to  understand  that  he  would  shoot  me  with  my  own  re- 
volver without  any  sort  of  compunction,  rather  than  risk 
a  rude  and  distasteful  contest  with  the  strange  barbarians 
for  my  sake.  He  has  preached  to  the  villagers.  They  re- 
spect him.  He  is  the  most  remarkable  man  they  have  ever 
seen,  and  their  kinsman  by  marriage.  They  understand  his 
policy.  And  anyway  only  women  and  children  and  a  few 
old  fellows  are  left  in  the  village.  This  is  the  season  when 
the  men  are  away  in  trading  vessels.  But  it  would  have 
been  all  the  same.  None  of  them  have  a  taste  for  fighting 
— and  with  white  men  too !  They  are  peaceable,  kindly  folk 
and  would  have  seen  me  shot  with  extreme  satisfaction. 
Wang  seemed  to  think  my  insistence — for  I  insisted,  you 
know — ^very  stupid  and  tactless.  But  a  drowning  man 
clutches  at  straws.  We  were  talking  in  such  Malay  as  we 
are  both  equal  to. 

"  *Your  fears  are  foolish,'  I  said  to  him. 

"Toolish?  Of  course  I  am  fooHsh,'  he  replied.  'If  I 
were  a  wise  man,  I  would  be  a  merchant  with  a  big  hong 
in  Singapore,  instead  of  being  a  mine  coolie  turned  house- 
boy.  But  if  you  don't  go  away  in  time,  I  will  shoot  you 
before  it  grows  too  dark  to  take  aim.  Not  till  then,  Num- 
ber One,  but  I  will  do  it  then.  Now — finish !' 

"  *A11  right,'  I  said.  'Finish  as  far  as  I  am  concerned; 
but  you  can  have  no  objections  to  the  mem  putih  coming 
over  to  stay  with  the  Orang  Kaya's  women  for  a  few 


326  VICTORY 

days.  I  will  make  a  present  in  silver  for  it.'  Orang  Kaya 
is  the  head  man  of  the  village,  Lena,"  added  Heyst. 

She  looked  at  him  in  astonishment. 

"You  wanted  me  to  go  to  that  village  of  savages?**  she 
gasped.  ''You  wanted  me  to  leave  you?'* 

"It  would  have  given  me  a  freer  hand.'* 

Heyst  stretched  out  his  hands  and  looked  at  them  for 
a  moment,  then  let  them  fall  by  his  side.  Indignation  was 
expressed  more  in  the  curve  of  her  lips  than  in  her  clear 
eyes,  which  never  wavered. 

"I  believe  Wang  laughed,**  he  went  on.  "He  made  a 
noise  like  a  turkey-cock." 

"  'That  would  be  worse  than  anything,*  he  told  me. 

"I  was  taken  aback.  I  pointed  out  to  him  that  he  was 
talking  nonsense.  It  could  not  make  any  difference  to  his 
security  where  you  were,  because  the  evil  men,  as  he  calls 
them,  did  not  know  of  your  existence.  I  did  not  lie  exactly, 
Lena,  though  I  did  stretch  the  truth  till  it  cracked ;  but  the 
fellow  seems  to  have  an  uncanny  insight.  He  shook  his 
head.  He  assured  me  they  knew  all  about  you.  He  made 
a  horrible  grimace  at  me.'* 

"It  doesn't  matter,"  said  the  girl.  "I  didn't  want — I 
would  not  have  gone." 

Heyst  raised  his  eyes. 

"Wonderful  intuition !  As  I  continued  to  press  him, 
Wang  made  that  very  remark  about  you.  When  he  smiles, 
his  face  looks  like  a  conceited  death's  head.  It  was  his  very 
last  remark — ^that  you  wouldn't  want  to.  I  went  away 
then.** 

She  leaned  back  against  a  tree.  Heyst  faced  her  in 
the  same  attitude  of  leisure,  as  if  they  had  done  with 
time  and  all  the  other  concerns  of  the  earth.  Suddenly,, 
high  above  their  heads,  the  roof  of  leaves  whispered  at 
them  tumultuously  and  then  ceased. 

"That  was  a  strange  notion  of  yours,  to  send  me  away,**" 
she  said.  "Send  me  away?  What  for?  Yes,  what  for?" 


VICTORY  327 

"You  seem  indignant,"  he  remarked  listlessly. 

"To  these  savages,  too !"  she  pursued.  "And  you  think  I 
would  have  gone  ?  You  can  do  what  you  like  with  me — ^but 
not  that,  not  that !" 

Heyst  looked  into  the  dim  aisles  of  the  forest.  Every- 
thing was  so  still  now  that  the  very  ground  on  which 
they  stood  seemed  to  exhale  silence  into  the  shade. 

"Why  be  indignant?"  he  remonstrated.  "It  has  not  hap- 
pened. I  gave  up  pleading  with  Wang.  Here  we  are,  re- 
pulsed !  Not  only  without  power  to  resist  the  evil,  but  un- 
able to  make  terms  for  ourselves  with  the  worthy  envoys, 
the  envoys  extraordinary  of  the  world  we  thought  we  had 
done  with  for  years  and  years.  And  that's  bad,  Lena,  very 
bad." 

"It's  funny,"  she  said  thoughtfully.  "Bad?  I  suppose  it 
is.  I  don't  know  that  it  is.  But  do  you  ?  Do  you  ?  You  talk 
as  if  you  didn't  believe  in  it." 

She  gazed  at  him  earnestly. 

"Do  I?  Ah!  That's  it.  I  don't  know  how  to  talk.  I 
have  managed  to  refine  everything  away.  I've  said  to  the 
Earth  that  bore  me :  'I  am  I  and  you  are  a  shadow.'  And, 
by  Jove,  it  is  so !  But  it  appears  that  such  words  cannot  be 
uttered  with  impunity.  Here  I  am  on  a  Shadow  inhabited 
by  Shades.  How  helpless  a  man  is  against  the  Shades ! 
How  is  one  to  intimidate,  persuade,  resist,  assert  oneself 
against  them  ?  I  have  lost  all  belief  in  realities.  .  .  .  Lena, 
give  me  your  hand." 

She  looked  at  him  surprised,  uncomprehending. 

"Your  hand,"  he  cried. 

She  obeyed ;  he  seized  it  with  avidity  as  if  eager  to  raise 
it  to  his  lips,  but  halfway  up  released  his  grasp.  They 
looked  at  each  other  for  a  time. 

"What's  the  matter,  dear?"  she  whispered  timidly. 

"Neither  force  nor  conviction,"  Heyst  muttered  wearily 
to  himself.  "How  am  I  to  meet  this  charmingly  simple 
problem  ?" 


528  VICTORY 

''I  am  sorry,"  she  murmured. 

"And  so  am  I,"  he  confessed  quickly.  "And  the  bitterest 
of  this  humiliation  is  its  complete  uselessness — which  I 
feel,  I  feel !" 

She  had  never  before  seen  him  give  such  signs  of  feel- 
ing. Across  his  ghastly  face  the  long  moustaches  flamed  in 
the  shade.  He  spoke  suddenly : 

"I  wonder  if  I  could  find  enough  courage  to  creep 
among  them  in  the  night,  with  a  knife,  and  cut  their 
throats  one  after  another,  as  they  slept !  I  wonder " 

She  was  frightened  by  his  unwonted  appearance  more 
than  by  the  words  in  his  mouth,  and  said  earnestly : 

"Don't  you  try  to  do  such  a  thing!  Don't  you  think  of 
it!" 

"I  don't  possess  anything  bigger  than  a  penknife.  As 
to  thinking  of  it,  Lena,  there's  no  saying  what  one  may 
think  of.  I  don't  think.  Something  in  me  thinks — some- 
thing foreign  to  my  nature.  What  is  the  matter?" 

He  noticed  her  parted  lips,  and  the  peculiar  stare  in  her 
eyes,  which  had  wandered  from  his  face. 

"There's  somebody  after  us.  I  saw  something  white 
moving,"  she  cried. 

Heyst  did  not  turn  his  head;  he  only  glanced  at  her 
outstretched  arm. 

"Xo  doubt  we  are  followed ;  we  are  watched." 

"I  don't  see  anything  now,"  she  said. 

"And  it  does  not  matter,"  Heyst  went  on  in  his 
ordinary  voice.  "Here  wt  are  in  the  forest.  I  have  neither 
strength  nor  persuasion.  Indeed,  it's  extremely  difficult  to 
be  eloquent  before  a  Chinaman's  head  stuck  at  one  out  of 
a  lot  of  brushwood.  But  can  we  wander  among  these  big 
trees  indefinitely  ?  Is  this  a  refuge  ?  No !  What  else  is  left 
to  us  ?  I  did  think  for  a  moment  of  the  mine ;  but  even 
there  we  could  not  remain  very  long.  And  then  that  gallery 
is  not  safe.  The  props  were  too  weak  to  begin  with.  Ants 
have  been  at  work  there — ants  after  the  men.  A  death- 


VICTORY  329 

trap,  at  best.  One  can  die  but  once,  but  there  are  many 
manners  of  death." 

The  girl  glanced  about  fearfully,  in  search  of  the 
watcher  or  follower  whom  she  had  glimpsed  once  among 
the  trees;  but  if  he  existed,  he  had  concealed  himself. 
Nothing  met  her  eyes  but  the  deepening  shadows  of  the 
short  vistas  between  the  living  columns  of  the  still  roof  of 
leaves.  She  looked  at  the  man  beside  her  expectantly, 
tenderly,  with  suppressed  affright  and  a  sort  of  awed 
wonder. 

"I  have  also  thought  of  these  people's  boat,"  Heyst 
went  on.  "We  could  get  into  that,  and — only  they  have 
taken  everything  out  of  her.  I  have  seen  her  oars  and 
mast  in  a  corner  of  their  room.  To  shove  off  in  an  empty 
boat  would  be  nothing  but  a  desperate  expedient,  suppos- 
ing even  that  she  would  drift  out  a  good  distance  between 
the  islands  before  the  morning.  It  would  only  be  a  com- 
plicated manner  of  committing  suicide — ^to  be  found  dead 
in  a  boat,  dead  from  sun  and  thirst.  A  sea  mystery.  I 
wonder  who  would  find  us !  Davidson,  perhaps ;  but 
Davidson  passed  westward  ten  days  ago.  I  watched  him 
steaming  past  one  early  morning,  from  the  jetty." 

"He  must  have  been  looking  at  me  through  his  big 
binoculars.  Perhaps,  if  I  had  raised  my  arm — ^but  what 
did  we  want  with  Davidson  then,  you  and  I  ?  He  won't  be 
back  this  way  for  three  weeks  or  more,  Lena.  I  wish  I 
had  raised  my  arm  that  morning." 

"What  would  have  been  the  good  of  it?"  she  sighed 
out. 

"What  good?  No  good,  of  course.  We  had  no  fore- 
bodings. This  seemed  to  be  an  inexpugnable  refuge,  where 
we  could  live  untroubled  and  learn  to  know  each  other." 

"It's  perhaps  in  trouble  that  people  get  to  know  each 
other,"  she  suggested. 

"Perhaps,"  he  said  indifferently.  "At  any  rate,  we  would 
not  have  gone  away  from  here  with  him ;  though  I  believe 


330  VICTORY 

he  would  have  come  in  eagerly  enough,  and  ready  for  any 
service  he  could  render.  It's  that  fat  man's  nature — a 
delightful  fellow.  You  would  not  come  on  the  wharf  that 
time  I  sent  the  shawl  back  to  Mrs.  Schomberg  through 
him.  He  has  never  seen  you." 

"I  didn't  know  that  you  wanted  anybody  ever  to  see 
me,"  she  said. 

He  had  folded  his  arms  on  his  breast  and  hung  his 
head. 

"And  I  did  not  know  that  you  cared  to  be  seen  as  yet. 
A  misunderstanding  evidently.  An  honourable  misunder- 
standing. But  it  does  not  matter  now." 

He  raised  his  head  after  a  silence. 

"How  gloomy  this  forest  has  grown !  Yet  surely  the  sun 
cannot  have  set  already." 

She  looked  round;  and  as  if  her  eyes  had  just  been 
opened,  she  perceived  the  shades  of  the  forest  surround- 
ing her,  not  so  much  with  gloom,  but  with  a  sullen,  dumb, 
menacing  hostility.  Her  heart  sank  in  the  engulfing  still- 
ness; at  that  moment  she  felt  the  nearness  of  death 
breathing  on  her  and  on  the  man  with  her.  If  there  had 
been  a  sudden  stir  of  leaves,  the  crack  of  a  dry  branch, 
the  faintest  rustle,  she  would  have  screamed  aloud.  But 
she  shook  off  the  unworthy  weakness.  Such  as  she  was,  a 
fiddle-scraping  girl  picked  up  on  the  very  threshold  of 
infamy,  she  would  try  to  rise  above  herself,  triumphant 
and  humble;  and  then  happiness  would  burst  on  her  like 
a  torrent,  flinging  at  her  feet  the  man  whom  she  loved. 

Heyst  stirred  slightly. 

"We  had  better  be  getting  back,  Lena,  since  we  can't 
stay  all  night  in  the  woods — or  anywhere  else,  for  that 
matter.  We  are  the  slaves  of  this  infernal  surprise  which 
has  been  sprung  on  us  by — shall  I  say  fate  ? — ^your  fate,  or 
mine." 

It  was  the  man  who  had  broken  the  silence,  but  it  was 
the  woman  who  led  the  way.  At  the  very  edge  of  the 


VICTORY  331 

forest  she  stopped,  concealed  by  a  tree.  He  joined  her 
cautiously. 

"What  is  it?  What  do  you  see,  Lena?"  he  whispered. 

She  said  that  it  was  only  a  thought  that  had  come  into 
her  head.  She  hesitated  for  a  moment,  giving  him  over 
her  shoulder  a  shining  gleam  of  her  grey  eyes.  She  wanted 
to  know  whether  this  trouble,  this  danger,  this  evil,  what- 
ever it  was,  finding  them  out  in  their  retreat,  was  not  a 
sort  of  punishment. 

"Punishment?"  repeated  Heyst.  He  could  not  under- 
stand what  she  meant.  When  she  explained,  he  was  still 
more  surprised.  "A  sort  of  retribution  from  an  angry 
Heaven?"  he  said  in  wonder.  "On  us?  What  on  earth 
for?" 

He  saw  her  pale  face  darken  in  the  dusk.  She  had 
blushed.  Her  whispering  flowed  very  fast.  It  was  the 
way  they  lived  together — ^that  wasn't  right,  was  it  ?  It  was 
a  guilty  life.  For  she  had  not  been  forced  into  it,  driven, 
scared  into  it.  No,  no — she  had  come  to  him  of  her  own 
free  will,  with  her  whole  soul  yearning  unlawfully. 

He  was  so  profoundly  touched  that  he  could  not  speak 
for  a  moment.  To  conceal  his  trouble,  he  assumed  his  best 
Heystian  manner. 

"What?  Are  our  visitors  then  messengers  of  morality, 
avengers  of  righteousness,  agents  of  Providence?  That's 
certainly  an  original  view.  How  flattered  they  would  be  if 
they  could  hear  you !" 

"Now  you  are  making  fun  of  me,"  she  said  in  a  sub- 
dued voice  which  broke  suddenly. 

"Are  you  conscious  of  sin?"  Heyst  asked  gravely.  She 
made  no  answer.  "For  I  am  not,"  he  added;  "before 
Heaven,  I  am  not !" 

"You!  You  are  different.  Woman  is  the  tempter.  You 
took  me  up  from  pity.  I  threw  myself  at  you." 

"Oh,  you  exaggerate,  you  exaggerate.   It  was  not  so 


332  vix:tory 

bad  as  that,"  he  said  playfully,  keeping  his  voice  steady 
with  an  effort. 

He  considered  himself  a  dead  man  already,  yet  forced 
to  pretend  that  he  was  alive  for  her  sake,  for  her  defence. 
He  regretted  that  he  had  no  Heaven  to  which  he  could 
recommend  this  fair,  palpitating  handful  of  ashes  and" 
dust — warm,  living,  sentient,  his  own — and  exposed  help- 
lessly to  insult,  outrage,  degradation,  and  infinite  misery 
of  the  body. 

She  had  averted  her  face  from  him  and  was  still.  He 
suddenly  seized  her  passive  hand. 

"You  will  have  it  so  ?"  he  said.  "Yes  ?  Well,  let  us  then 
hope  for  mercy  together." 

She  shook  her  head  without  looking  at  him,  like  an 
abashed  child. 

"Remember,"  he  went  on,  incorrigible  with  his  deli- 
cate railler}%  "that  hope  is  a  Christian  virtue,  and  surely 
you  can't  want  all  the  mercy  for  yourself." 

Before  their  eyes  the  bungalow  across  the  cleared 
ground  stood  bathed  in  a  sinister  light.  An  unexpected 
chill  gust  of  wind  made  a  noise  in  the  tree-tops.  She 
snatched  her  hand  away  and  stepped  out  into  the  open ;  but 
before  she  had  advanced  more  than  three  yards,  she  stood 
still  and  pointed  to  the  west. 

"Oh,  look  there !"  she  exclaimed. 

Beyond  the  headland  of  Diamond  Bay,  lying  black  on  a 
purple  sea,  great  masses  of  cloud  stood  piled  up  and  bathed 
in  a  mist  of  blood.  A  crimson  crack  like  an  open  wound 
zigzagged  between  them,  with  a  piece  of  dark  red  sun 
showing  at  the  bottom.  Heyst  cast  an  indifferent  glance  at 
the  rll-omened  chaos  of  the  sky. 

"Thunderstorm  making  up.  We  shall  hear  it  all  night, 
but  it  won't  visit  us,  probably.  The  clouds  generally  gather 
round  the  volcano." 

She  was  not  listening  to  him.  Her  eyes  reflected  the 
sombre  and  violent  hues  of  the  sunset. 


VICTORY  333 

"That  does  not  look  much  Hke  a  sign  of  mercy,"  she  said 
slowly,  as  if  to  herself,  and  hurried  on,  followed  by  Heyst. 
Suddenly  she  stopped.  *1  don't  care.  I  would  do  more  yet ! 
And  some  day  you'll  forgive  me.  You'll  have  to  forgive 
me!'* 


IX 

Stumbling  up  the  steps,  as  if  suddenly  exhausted, 
Lena  entered  the  room  and  let  herself  fall  on  the  nearest 
chair.  Before  following  her,  Heyst  took  a  survey  of  the 
surroundings  from  the  verandah.  It  was  a  complete  soli- 
tude. There  was  nothing  in  the  aspect  of  this  familiar 
scene  to  tell  him  that  he  and  the  girl  were  not  as  com- 
pletely alone  as  they  had  been  in  the  early  days  of  their 
common  life  on  this  abandoned  spot,  with  only  Wang 
discreetly  materialising  from  time  to  time  and  the  un- 
complaining memory  of  Morrison  to  keep  them  company. 

After  the  cold  gust  of  wind  there  was  an  absolute  still- 
ness of  the  air.  The  thunder-charged  mass  hung  unbroken 
beyond  the  low,  ink-black  headland,  darkening  the  twi- 
light. By  contrast,  the  sk}^  at  the  zenith  displayed  pellucid 
clearness,  the  sheen  of  a  delicate  glass  bubble  which  the 
merest  movement  of  air  might  shatter.  A  little  to  the  left, 
between  the  black  masses  of  the  headland  and  of  the 
forest,  the  volcano,  a  feather  of  smoke  by  day  and  a  cigar- 
glow  at  night,  took  its  first  fier}'  expanding  breath  of  the 
evening.  Above  it  a  reddish  star  came  out  like  an  expelled 
spark  from  the  fiery  bosom  of  the  earth,  enchanted  into 
permanency  by  the  mysterious  spell  of  frozen  spaces. 

In  front  of  Heyst  the  forest,  already  full  of  the  deepest 
shades,  stood  like  a  wall.  But  he  lingered,  watching  its 
edge,  especially  where  it  ended  at  the  line  of  bushes, 
masking  the  land  end  of  the  jetty.  Since  the  girl  had 
spoken  of  catching  a  glimpse  of  something  white  among 
the  trees,  he  believed  prett}^  firmly  that  they  had  been 
followed   in  their   excursion   up   the   mountain  ■  by    Mr. 

334 


VICTORY  335 

Jones's  secretary.  No  doubt  the  fellow  had  watched  them 
out  of  the  forest,  and  now,  unless  he  took  the  trouble  to 
go  back  some  distance  and  fetch  a  considerable  circuit  in- 
land over  the  clearing,  he  was  bound  to  walk  out  into  the 
open  space  before  the  bungalows.  Heyst  did,  indeed, 
imagine  at  one  time  some  movement  between  the  trees, 
lost  as  soon  as  perceived.  He  stared  patiently,  but  nothing 
more  happened.  After  all,  why  should  he  trouble  about 
these  people's  actions?  Why  this  stupid  concern  for  the 
preliminaries,  since,  when  the  issue  was  joined,  it  would 
find  him  disarmed  and  shrinking  from  the  ugHness  and 
degradation  of  it? 

He  turned  and  entered  the  room.  Deep  dusk  reigned  in 
there  already.  Lena,  near  the  door,  did  not  move  or  speak. 
The  sheen  of  the  white  tablecloth  was  very  obtrusive.  The 
brute  these  two  vagabonds  had  tamed  had  entered  on  its 
service  while  Heyst  and  Lena  were  away.  The  table  was 
laid.  Heyst  walked  up  and  down  the  room  several  times. 
The  girl  remained  without  sound  or  movement  on  the 
chair.  But  when  Heyst,  placing  the  two  silver  candelabra 
on  the  table,  struck  a  match  to  light  the  candles,  she  gat 
up  suddenly  and  went  into  the  bedroom.  She  came  out 
again  almost  immediately,  having  taken  off  her  hat.  Heyst 
looked  at  her  over  his  shoulder. 

"What's  the  good  of  shirking  the  evil  hour?  I've  lighted 
these  candles  for  a  sign  of  our  return.  After  all,  we  might 
not  have  been  watched — ^while  returning,  I  mean.  Of 
course  we  were  seen  leaving  the  house." 

The  girl  sat  down  again.  The  great  wealth  of  her  hair 
looked  very  dark  above  her  colourless  face.  She  raised 
her  eyes,  glistening  softly  in  the  light  with  a  sort  of  un- 
readable appeal,  with  a  strange  effect  of  unseeing  in- 
nocence. 

"Yes,"  said  Heyst  across  the  table,  the  fingertips  of  one 
hand  resting  on  the  immaculate  cloth.  "A  creature  with 
an  antediluvian  lower  jaw,  hairy  like  a  mastodon,  and 


Vi6  VICTORY 

formed  like  a  prehistoric  ape,  has  laid  this  table.  Are  you 
awake,  Lena?  Am  I?  I  would  pinch  myself,  only  I  know 
that  nothing  would  do  away  with  this  dream.  Three 
covers.  You  know  it  is  the  shorter  of  the  two  who's  com- 
ing— the  gentleman  who,  in  the  play  of  his  shoulders  as  he 
walks,  and  in  his  facial  structure,  recalls  a  jaguar.  Ah,  you 
don't  know  what  a  jaguar  is?  But  you  have  had  a  good 
look  at  these  two.  It's  the  short  one,  you  know,  who's  to 
be  our  guest." 

She  made  a  sign  with  her  head  that  she  knew.  Heyst's 
insistence  brought  Ricardo  vividly  before  her  mental 
vision.  A  sudden  languor,  like  the  physical  echo  of  her 
struggle  with  the  man,  paralysed  all  her  limbs.  She  lay 
still  in  the  chair,  feeling  very  frightened  at  this  phenome- 
non— ready  to  pray  aloud  for  strength. 

Heyst  had  started  to  pace  the  room. 

"Our  guest !  There  is  a  proverb — in  Russia,  I  believe — 
that  when  a  guest  enters  the  house,  God  enters  the  house. 
The  sacred  virtue  of  hospitality!  But  it  leads  one  into 
trouble  as  well  as  any  other." 

The  girl  unexpectedly  got  up  from  the  chair,  swaying 
her  supple  figure  and  stretching  her  arms  above  her  head. 
He  stopped  to  look  at  her  curiously,  paused,  and  then 
went  on : 

"I  venture  to  think  that  God  has  nothing  to  do  with 
such  a  hospitality  and  with  such  a  guest !" 

She  had  jumped  to  her  feet  to  react  against  the  numb- 
ness, to  discover  whether  her  body  would  obey  her  will. 
It  did.  She  could  stand  up,  and  she  could  move  her  arms 
freely.  Though  no  physiologist,  she  concluded  that  all  that 
sudden  numbness  was  in  her  head,  not  in  her  limbs.  Her 
fears  assuaged,  she  thanked  God  for  it  mentally,  and  to 
Heyst  murmured  a  protest: 

"Oh,  yes !  He's  got  to  do  with  everything — every  little 
thing.  Nothing  can  happen " 

"Yes,"  he  said  hastily,  "one  of  the  two  sparrows  can*t 


VICTORY  337 

be  struck  to  the  ground — ^you  are  thinking  of  that."  The 
habitual  playful  smile  faded  on  the  kindly  lips  under  the 
martial  moustache.  "Ah,  you  remember  what  you  have 
been  told — as  a  child — on  Sundays." 

"Yes,  I  do  remember."  She  sank  into  the  chair  again. 
"It  was  the  only  decent  bit  of  time  I  ever  had  when  I 
was  a  kid,  with  our  ladylady's  two  girls,  you  know." 

"I  wonder,  Lena,"  Heyst  said,  with  a  return  of  his 
urbane  playfulness,  "whether  you  are  just  a  little  child,  or 
whether  you  represent  something  as  old  as  the  world." 

She  surprised  Heyst  by  saying  dreamily: 

"Well — and  what  about  you  ?" 

"I  ?  I  date  later — much  later.  I  can't  call  myself  a  child, 
but  I  am  so  recent  that  I  may  call  myself  a  man  of  th^ 
last  hour — or  is  it  the  hour  before  last  ?  I  have  been  out  of 
it  so  long  that  I  am  not  certain  how  far  the  hands  of  the 
clock  have  moved  since — since " 

He  glanced  at  the  portrait  of  his  father,  exactly  above 
the  head  of  the  girl,  and  as  it  were  ignoring  her  in  its 
painted  austerity  of  feeling.  He  did  not  finish  the 
sentence ;  but  he  did  not  remain  silent  for  long. 

"Only  what  must  be  avoided  are  fallacious  inferences, 
my  dear  Lena — especially  at  this  hour." 

"Now  you  are  making  fun  of  me  again,"  she  said  with- 
out looking  up. 

"Am  I?"  he  cried.  "Making  fun?  No,  giving  warning. 
Hang  it  all,  whatever  truth  people  told  you  in  the  old  days, 
there  .  is  also  this  one — ^that  sparrows  do  fall  to  the 
ground,  that  they  are  brought  down  to  the  ground.  This 
is  no  vain  assertion,  but  a  fact.  That's  why" — again  his 
tone  changed,  while  he  picked  up  a  table  knife  and  let  it 
fall  disdainfully — "that's  why  I  wish  these  wretched 
round  knives  had  some  edge  on  them.  Absolute  rubbish — • 
neither  edge,  point,  nor  substance.  I  believe  one  of  these 
forks  would  make  a  better  weapon  at  a  pinch.  But  can  I 


338  VICTORY 

go  about  with  a  fork  in  my  pocket?"  He  gnashed  his 
teeth  with  a  rage  ven*  real,  and  yet  comic. 

"There  used  to  be  a  carver  here,  but  it  was  broken  and 
thrown  away  a  long  time  ago.  Nothing  much  to  carve 
here.  It  would  have  made  a  noble  weapon,  no  doubt; 
but " 

He  stopped.  The  girl  sat  xery  quiet,  with  downcast  eyes. 
As  he  kept  silent  for  some  time,  she  looked  up  and  said 
thoughtfully : 

**Yes,  a  knife — ^it's  a  knife  that  you  would  want, 
wouldn't  you.  in  case,  in  case " 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"There  must  be  a  crowbar  or  two  in  the  sheds;  but  I 
have  given  up  all  the  keys  together.  And  then,  do  you  see 
me  walking  about  with  a  crowbar  in  my  hand?  Ha,  ha! 
And  besides,  that  edifying  sight  alone  might  start  the 
trouble  for  all  I  know.  In  truth,  why  has  it  not  started 
yet?" 

"Perhaps  they  are  afraid  of  you,"  she  whispered,  look- 
ing down  again. 

"By  Jove,  it  looks  like  it,"  he  assented  meditatively. 
"They  do  seem  to  hang  back  for  some  reason.  Is  that 
reason  prudence,  or  downright  fear,  or  perhaps  the 
leisurely  method  of  certitude?" 

Out  in  the  black  night,  not  ver\'  far  from  the  bungalow, 
resounded  a  loud  and  prolonged  whistle.  Lena's  hands 
grasped  the  sides  of  the  chair,  but  she  made  no  move- 
ment. Heyst  started,  and  turned  his  face  away  from  the 
door. 

The  startling  sound  had  died  away. 

"Whistles,  yells,  omens,  signals,  portents — what  do  they 
matter?"  he  said.  "But  what  about  that  crowbar?  Sup- 
pose I  had  it !  Could  I  stand  in  ambush  at  the  side  of  the 
door — this  door — and  smash  the  first  protruding  head, 
scatter  blood  and  brains  over  the  floor,  over  these  walls, 
and  then  run  stealthily  to  the  other  door  to  do  the  same 


VICTORY  339 

thing — and  repeat  the  performance  for  a  third  time,  per- 
haps ?  Could  I  ?  On  suspicion,  without  compunction,  with  a 
calm  and  determined  purpose?  No,  it  is  not  in  me.  I  date 
too  late.  Would  you  like  to  see  me  attempt  this  thing  while 
that  mysterious  prestige  of  mine  lasts — or  their  not  less 
mysterious  hesitation?" 

"No,  no!"  she  whispered  ardently,  as  if  compelled  to 
speak  by  his  eyes  fixed  on  her  face.  "No,  it's  a  knife  you 
want  to  defend  yourself  with — ^to  defend — ^there  will  be 
time " 

"And  who  knows  if  it  isn't  really  my  duty?"  he  began 
again,  as  if  he  had  not  heard  her  disjointed  words  at  alL 
"It  may  be — my  duty  to  you,  to  myself.  For  why  should 
I  put  up  with  the  humiliation  of  their  secret  menaces  ?  Do 
you  know  what  the  world  would  say  ?" 

He  emitted  a  low  laugh,  which  struck  her  with  terror. 
She  would  have  got  up,  but  he  stooped  so  low  over  her 
that  she  could  not  move  without  first  pushing  him  away. 

"It  would  say,  Lena,  that  I — that  Swede — after  luring 
my  friend  and  partner  to  his  death  from  mere  greed  of 
money,  have  murdered  these  unoffending  shipwrecked 
strangers  from  sheer  funk.  That  would  be  the  story  whis- 
pered— perhaps  shouted — certainly  spread  out,  and  be- 
lieved— and  believed,  my  dear  Lena !" 

"Who  would  believe  such  awful  things  ?" 

"Perhaps  you  wouldn't — ^not  at  first,  at  any  rate;  but 
the  power  of  calumny  grows  with  time.  It's  insidious  and 
penetrating.  It  can  even  destroy  one's  faith  in  oneself — 
dry-rot  the  soul." 

All  at  once  her  eyes  leaped  to  the  door  and  remained 
fixed,  stony,  a  little  enlarged.  Turning  his  head,  Heyst 
beheld  the  figure  of  Ricardo  framed  in  the  doorway.  For 
a  moment  none  of  the  three  moved;  then,  looking  from 
the  newcomer  to  the  girl  in  the  chair,  Heyst  formulated  a 
sardonic  introduction. 

"Mr.  Ricardo,  my  dear." 


340  VICTORY 

Her  head  drooped  a  little.  Ricardo's  hand  went  up  to 
his  moustache.  His  voice  exploded  in  the  room. 

"At  your  service,  ma'am !" 

He  stepped  in,  taking  his  hat  off  with  a  flourish,  and 
dropping  it  carelessly  on  a  chair  near  the  door. 

"At  your  service,"  he  repeated,  in  quite  another  tone. 
"I  was  made  aware  there  was  a  lady  about,  by  that  Pedro 
of  ours ;  only  I  didn't  know  I  should  have  the  privilege  of 
seeing  you  to-night,  ma'am." 

Lena  and  Heyst  looked  at  him  covertly,  but  he,  with  a 
vague  gaze  avoiding  them  both,  looked  at  nothing,  seem- 
ing to  pursue  some  point  in  space. 

"Had  a  pleasant  walk?"  he  asked  suddenly. 

"Yes.  And  you?"  returned  Heyst,  who  had  managed 
to  catch  his  glance. 

"I  ?  I  haven't  been  a  yard  away  from  the  governor  this 
afternoon  till  I  started  for  here."  The  genuineness  of  the 
accent  surprised  Heyst,  without  convincing  him  of  the 
truth  of  the  words.  "Why  do  you  ask?"  pursued  Ricardo 
with  every  inflexion  of  perfect  candour. 

"You  might  have  wished  to  explore  the  island  a  little," 
said  Heyst,  studying  the  man,  who,  to  render  him  justice, 
did  not  try  to  free  his  captured  gaze.  "I  may  remind  you 
that  it  wouldn't  be  a  perfectly  safe  proceeding." 

Ricardo  presented  a  picture  of  innocence. 

"Oh,  yes  ! — meaning  that  Chink  that  has  run  away  from 
you.  He  ain't  much !" 

"He  has  a  revolver,"  observed  Heyst  meaningly. 

"Well,  and  you  have  a  revolver,  too,"  Mr.  Ricardo 
argued  unexpectedly.  "I  don't  worry  myself  about  that." 

"I?  That's  different.  I  am  not  afraid  of  you/'  Heyst 
made  answer  after  a  short  pause. 

"Of  me?" 

"Of  all  of  you." 

"You  have  a  queer  way  of  putting  things,"  began 
Ricardo. 


VICTORY  341 

At  that  moment  the  door  on  the  compound  side  of  the 
house  came  open  with  some  noise,  and  Pedro  entered, 
pressing  the  edge  of  a  loaded  tray  to  his  breast.  His  big, 
hairy  head  rolled  a  little,  his  feet  fell  in  front  of  each 
other  with  a  short,  hard  thump  on  the  floor.  The  arrival 
changed  the  current  of  Ricardo's  thought,  perhaps,  but 
certainly  of  his  speech. 

"You  heard  me  whistling  a  little  while  ago  outside? 
That  was  to  give  him  a  hint,  as  I  came  along,  that  it  was 
time  to  bring  in  the  dinner ;  and  here  it  is.'* 

Lena  rose  and  passed  to  the  right  of  Ricardo,  who 
lowered  his  glance  for  a  moment.  They  sat*  down  at  the 
table.  The  enormous  gorilla  back  of  Pedro  swayed  out 
through  the  door. 

"Extraordinary  strong  brute,  ma'am,''  said  Ricardo.  He 
had  a  propensity  to  talk  about  "his  Pedro,"  as  some  men 
will  talk  of  their  dog.  "He  ain't  pretty,  though.  No,  he 
ain't  pretty.  And  he  has  got  to  be  kept  under.  I  am  his 
keeper,  as  it  might  be.  The  governor  don't  trouble  his 
head  much  about  dee-tails.  All  that's  left  to  Martin.  Mar- 
tin, that's  me,  ma'am." 

Heyst  saw  the  girl's  eyes  turn  towards  Mr.  Jones's 
secretary  and  rest  blankly  on  his  face.  Ricardo,  however, 
looked  vaguely  into  space,  and,  with  faint  flickers  of  a 
smile  about  his  lips,  made  conversation  indefatigably 
against  the  silence  of  his  entertainers.  He  boasted  largely 
of  his  long  association  with  Mr.  Jones — over  four  years 
now,  he  said.  Then,  glancing  rapidly  at  Heyst : 

"You  can  see  at  once  he's  a  gentleman,  can't  you?" 

"You  people,"  Heyst  said,  his  habitual  playful  intona- 
tion tinged  with  gloom,  "are  divorced  from  all  reality  in 
my  eyes." 

Ricardo  received  this  speech  as  if  he  had  been  expecting 
to  hear  those  very  words,  or  else  did  not  mind  at  all  what 
Heyst  might  say.  He  muttered  an  absent-minded  "Ay,  ay/* 
played  with  a  bit   of   biscuit,   sighed,   and   said,   with   a 


342  VICTORY 

peculiar  stare  which  did  not  seem  to  carry  any  distance, 
but  to  stop  short  at  a  point  in  the  air  very  near  his  face : 

"Anybody  can  see  at  once  you  are  one.  You  and  the 
governor  ought  to  understand  each  other.  He  expects  to 
see  you  to-night.  The  governor  isn't  well,  and  we've  got 
to  think  of  getting  away  from  here." 

While  saying  these  words  he  turned  himself  full  to- 
wards Lena,  but  without  any  marked  expression.  Leaning 
back  with  folded  arms,  the  girl  stared  before  her  as  if  she 
had  been  alone  in  the  room.  But  under  that  aspect  of 
almost  vacant  unconcern  the  perils  and  emotion  that  had 
entered  into  her  life  warmed  her  heart,  exalted  her  mind 
with  a  sense  of  an  inconceivable  intensity  of  existence. 

"Really?  Thinking  of  going  away  from  here?"  Heyst 
murmured. 

"The  best  of  friends  must  part,"  Ricardo  pronounced 
slowly.  "And,  as  long  as  they  part  friends,  there's  no 
harm  done.  We  two  are  used  to  be  on  the  move.  You, 
I  understand,  prefer  to  stick  in  one  place." 

It  was  obvious  that  all  this  was  being  said  merely  for 
the  sake  of  talking,  and  that  Ricardo's  mind  was  con- 
centrated on  some  purpose  unconnected  with  the  words 
that  were  coming  out  of  his  mouth. 

"I  should  like  to  know,"  Heyst  asked  with  incisive 
politeness,  "how  you  have  come  to  understand  this  or  any- 
thing else  about  me  ?  As  far  as  I  can  remember,  I've  made 
you  no  confidences." 

Ricardo,  gazing  comfortably  into  space  out  of  the  back 
of  his  chair — for  some  time  all  three  had  given  up  any 
pretence  of  eating — answered  abstractedly : 

"Any  fellow  might  have  guessed  it."  He  sat  up  sud- 
denly, and  uncovered  all  his  teeth  in  a  grin  of  extraor- 
dinary ferocity,  which  was  belied  by  the  persistent 
amiability  of  his  tone.  "The  governor  will  be  the  man  to 
tell  you  something  about  that.  I  wish  you  would  say  you 
v/ould  see  my  governor.  He's  the  one  who  does  all  our 


VICTORY  343 

talking.  Let  me  take  you  to  him  this  evening.  He  ain't  at 
all  well ;  and  he  can't  make  up  his  mind  to  go  away  with- 
out having  a  talk  with  you." 

Heyst,  looking  up,  met  Lena's  eyes.  Their  expression 
of  candour  seemed  to  hide  some  struggling  intention.  Her 
head,  he  fancied,  had  made  an  imperceptible  affirmative 
movement.  Why?  What  reason  could  she  have?  Was  it 
the  prompting  of  some  obscure  instinct  ?  Or  was  it  simply 
a  delusion  of  his  own  senses  ?  But  in  this  strange  complica- 
tion invading  the  quietude  of  his  life,  in  his  state  of  doubt 
and  disdain  and  almost  of  despair  with  which  he  looked 
at  himself,  he  would  let  a  delusive  appearance  guide  him 
through  a  darkness  so  dense  that  it  made  for  indifference. 

** Well,  suppose  I  do  say  so  ?" 

Ricardo  did  not  coACeal  his  satisfaction,  which  for  a 
moment  interested  Heyst. 

"It  can't  be  my  life  they  are  after,"  he  said  to  himself. 
"What  good  could  it  be  to  them?" 

He  looked  across  the  table  at  the  girl.  What  did  it 
matter  whether  she  had  nodded  or  not?  As  always  when 
looking  into  her  unconscious  eyes,  he  tasted  something 
like  the  dregs  of  tender  pity.  He  had  decided  to  go.  Her 
nod,  imaginary  or  not  imaginary,  advice  or  illusion,  had 
tipped  the  scale.  He  reflected  that  Ricardo's  invitation 
could  scarcely  be  anything  in  the  nature  of  a  trap.  It 
would  have  been  too  absurd.  Why  carry  subtly  into  a 
trap  someone  already  bound  hand  and  foot,  as  it  were? 

All  this  time  he  had  been  looking  fixedly  at  the  girl  he 
called  Lena.  In  the  submissive  quietness  of  her  being, 
which  had  been  her  attitude  ever  since  they  had  begun 
their  life  on  the  island,  she  remained  as  secret  as  ever. 
Heyst  got  up  abruptly,  with  a  smile  of  such  enigmatic 
and  despairing  character  that  Mr.  Secretary  Ricardo, 
whose  abstract  gaze  had  an  all-round  efficiency,  made  a 
slight  crouching  start,  as  if  to  dive  under  the  table  for 
his   leg-knife — a   start   that   was    repressed   as    soon   as 


344  VICTORY 

begun.  He  had  expected  Heyst  to  spring  on  him  or  draw 
a  revolver,  because  he  created  for  himself  a  vision  of  him 
in  his  own  image.  Instead  of  doing  either  of  these  obvious 
things,  Heyst  walked  across  the  room,  opened  the  door, 
and  put  his  head  through  it  to  look  out  into  the  compound. 
As  soon  as  his  back  was  turned,  Ricardo's  hand  sought 
the  girl's  arm  under  the  table.  He  was  not  looking  at 
her,  but  she  felt  the  groping,  nervous  touch  of  his 
search,  felt  suddenly  the  grip  of  his  fingers  above  her 
wrist.  He  leaned  forward  a  little ;  still  he  dared  not  look 
at  her.  His  hard  stare  remained  fastened  on  Heyst's  back. 
In  an  extremely  low  hiss,  his  fixed  idea  of  argument 
found  expression  scathingly: 

"See!  He's  no  good.  He's  not  the  man  for  you!" 
He  glanced  at  her  at  last.  Her  lips  moved  a  little, 
and  he  was  awed  by  that  movement  without  a  sound. 
Next  instant  the  hard  grasp  of  his  fingers  vanished  from 
her  arm.  Heyst  had  shut  the  door.  On  his  way  back 
to  the  table,  he  crossed  the  path  of  the  girl  they  had 
called  Alma — she  didn't  know  why — also  Magdalen, 
whose  mind  had  remained  so  long  in  doubt  as  to  the 
reason  of  her  own  existence.  She  no  longer  wondered 
at  that  bitter  riddle,  since  her  heart  found  its  solution 
in  a  blinding,  hot  glow  of  passionate  purpose. 


X 

She  passed  by  Heyst  as  if  she  had  indeed  been  blinded 
by  some  secret,  lurid,  and  consuming  glare  into  which 
she  was  about  to  enter.  The  curtain  of  the  bedroom  door 
fell  behind  her  into  rigid  folds.  Ricardo^s  vacant  gaze 
seemed  to  be  watching  the  dancing  flight  of  a  fly  in 
mid  air. 

"Extra  dark  outside,  ain't  it?''  he  muttered. 

"Not  so  dark  but  that  I  could  see  that  man  of  yours 
prowling  about  there,"   said   Heyst  in  measured  tones. 

"What — Pedro?  He's  scarcely  a  man,  you  know;  or 
else  I  wouldn't  be  so  fond  of  him  as  I  am." 

"Very  well.  Let's  call  him  your  worthy  associate." 

"Ay!  Worthy  enough  for  what  we  want  of  him.  A 
great  stand-by  is  Peter  in  a  scrimmage.  A  growl  and  a 
bite — oh,  my!  And  you  don't  want  him  about?" 

"I  don't." 

"You  want  him  out  of  the  way?"  insisted  Ricardo 
with  an  affectation  of  incredulity  which  Heyst  accepted 
calmly,  though  the  air  in  the  room  seemed  to  grow  more 
oppressive  with  every  word  spoken. 

"That's  it.  I  do  want  him  out  of  the  way."  He  forced 
himself  to  speak  equably. 

"Lor'!  That's  no  great  matter.  Pedro's  not  much  use 
here.  The  business  my  governor's  after  can  be  settled  by 
ten  minutes'  rational  talk  with — with  another  gentleman. 
Quiet  talk!". 

He  looked  up  suddenly  with  hard,  phosphorescent  eyes. 
Heyst  didn't  move  a  muscle.  Ricardo  congratulated  him- 
self on  having  left  his  revolver  behind.  He  was  so  ex- 

345 


346  VICTORY 

asperated  that  he  didn't  know  what  he  might  have  done. 
He  said  at  last: 

"You  want  poor,  harmless  Peter  out  of  the  way  be- 
fore you  let  me  take  you  to  see  the  governor — is  that  it?" 

"Yes,  that  is  it." 

"H'm!  One  can  see,"  Ricardo  said  with  hidden  venom, 
''that  you  are  a  gentleman;  but  all  that  gentlemanly 
fancifulness  is  apt  to  turn  sour  on  a  plain  man's  stomach. 
However — ^^'ou'll  have  to  pardon  me." 

He  put  his  fingers  into  his  mouth  and  let  out  a  whistle 
which  seemed  to  drive  a  thin,  sharp  shaft  of  air  solidly 
against  one's  nearest  ear-drum.  Though  he  greatly  en- 
joyed Heyst's  involuntar}^  grimace,  he  sat  perfectly  stolid 
waiting  for  the  effect  of  the  call. 

It  brought  Pedro  in  with  an  extraordinar}',  uncouth, 
primeval  impetuosity.  The  door  flew  open  with  a  clatter, 
and  the  wild  figure  it  disclosed  seemed  anxious  to  devas- 
tate the  room  in  leaps  and  bounds ;  but  Ricardo  raised 
his  open  palm,  and  the  creature  came  in  quietly.  His 
enormous  half -closed  paws  swung  to  and  fro  a  little  in 
front  of  his  bowed  trunk  as  he  walked.  Ricardo  looked 
on  truculently. 

*'You  go  to  the  boat — understand?  Go  now!" 

The  little  red  eyes  of  the  tame  monster  blinked  with 
painful  attention  in  the  mass  of  hair. 

"Well?  Why  don't  you  get?  Forgot  human  speech, 
eh?  Don't  you  know  any  longer  what  a  boat  is?" 

''Si — ^boat,"    the    creature    stammered   out    doubtfully. 

"Well,  go  there — the  boat  at  the  jetty.  ^larch  off  to 
it  and  sit  there,  lie  down  there,  do  amlhing  but  go  to 
sleep  there — till  you  hear  my  call,  and  then  fly  here. 
Them's  your  orders.  March!  Get,  ramos!  No,  not  that 
way — out  through  the  front  door.  Xo  sulks !" 

Pedro  obeyed  with  uncouth  alacrit}'.  When  he  had 
gone,  the  gleam  of  pitiless  savager\-  went  out  of  Ricar- 
do's  yellow  eyes,  and  his  physiognomy  took  on,  for  the 


VICTORY  547 

first  time  that  evening,  the  expression  of  a  domestic  cat 
which  is  being  noticed. 

"You  can  watch  him  right  into  the  bushes,  if  you  like. 
Too  dark,  eh?  Why  not  go  with  him  to  the  very  spot, 
then?" 

Heyst  made  a  gesture  of  vague  protest. 

"There's  nothing  to  assure  me  that  he  will  stay  there. 
I  have  no  doubt  of  his  going;  but  it's  an  act  without  a 
guarantee.'* 

"There  you  are!"  Ricardo  shrugged  his  shoulders 
philosophically.  "Can't  be  helped.  Short  of  shooting  our 
Pedro,  nobody  can  make  absolutely  sure  of  his  staying  in 
the  same  place  longer  than  he  has  a  mind  to ;  but  I  tell 
you,  he  lives  in  holy  terror  of  my  temper.  That's  why 
I  put  on  my  sudden-death  air  when  I  talk  to  him.  And 
yet  I  wouldn't  shoot  him — not  I,  unless  in  such  a  fit  of 
rage  as  would  make  a  man  shoot  his  favourite  dog.  Look 
here,  sir!  This  deal  is  on  the  square.  I  didn't  tip  him  a 
wink  to  do  anything  else.  He  won't  budge  from  the  jetty. 
Are  you  coming  along  now,  sir?" 

A  short  silence  ensued.  Ricardo's  jaws  were  working 
ominously  under  his  skin.  His  eyes  glided  voluptuously 
here  and  there,  cruel  and  dreamy.  Heyst  checked  a  sud- 
den movement,  reflected  for  a  while,  then  said : 

"You  must  wait  a  little." 

"Wait  a  little !  Wait  a  little !  What  does  he  think  a  fel- 
low is — a  graven  image  ?"  grumbled  Ricardo  half  audibly. 

Heyst  went  into  the  bedroom,  and  shut  the  door  after 
him  with  a  bang.  Coming  from  the  light,  he  could  not 
see  a  thing  in  there  at  first;  yet  he  received  the  impres- 
sion of  the  girl  getting  up  from  the  floor.  On  the  less 
opaque  darkness  of  the  shutter-hole,  her  head  detached 
itself  suddenly,  very  faint,  a  mere  hint  of  a  round,  dark 
shape  without  a  face. 

"I  am  going,  Lena.  I  am  going  to  confront  these 
scoundrels."  He  was  surprised  to  feel  two  arms  falling 


348  VICTORY 

on  his   shoulders.   "I  thought  that  you "   he  began. 

"Yes,  yes !"  the  girl  whispered  hastily. 

She  neither  clung  to  him,  nor  yet  did  she  try  to  draw 
him  to  her.  Her  hands  grasped  his  shoulders,  and  she 
seemed  to  him  to  be  staring  into  his  face  in  the  dark. 
And  now  he  could  see  something  of  her  face,  too — an 
oval  without  features — and  faintly  distinguish  her  person, 
in  the  blackness,  a  form  without  definite  lines. 

"You  have  a  black  dress  here,  haven't  you,  Lena?" 
he  asked,  speaking  rapidly,  and  so  low  that  she  could  just 
hear  him. 

"Yes— an  old  thing." 

"Very  good.  Put  it  on  at  once.'' 

"But  why?" 

"Not  for  mourning!"  There  was  something  peremp- 
tory in  the  slightly  ironic  murmur.  "Can  you  find  it  and 
get  into  it  in  the  dark?" 

She  could.  She  would  try.  He  waited,  very  still.  He 
could  imagine  her  movements  over  there  at  the  far  end 
of  the  room;  but  his  eyes,  accustomed  now  to  the  dark- 
ness, had  lost  her  completely.  When  she  spoke,  her  voice 
surprised  him  by  its  nearness.  She  had  done  what  he  had 
told  her  to  do,  and  had  approached  him,  invisible. 

"Good !  Where's  that  piece  of  purple  veil  I've  seen 
lying  about?"  he  asked. 

There  was  no  answer,  only  a  slight  rustle. 

"Where  is  it?"  he  repeated  impatiently. 

Her  unexpected  breath  was  on  his  cheek. 

"In  my  hands." 

"Capital !  Listen,  Lena.  As  soon  as  I  leave  the  bungalow 
with  that  horrible  scoundrel,  you  slip  out  at  the  back — 
instantly,  lose  no  time ! — and  run  round  into  the  forest. 
That  \wi\\  be  your  time,  while  we  are  walking  away, 
and  I  am  sure  he  won't  give  me  the  slip.  Run  into  the 
forest  behind  the  fringe  of  bushes  between  the  big  trees. 
You  will  know,  surely,  how  to  find  a  place  in  full  view 


VICTORY  349 

of  the  front  door.  1  fear  for  you;  but  in  this  black 
dress,  with  most  of  your  face  muffled  up  in  that  dark  veil, 
I  defy  anybody  to  find  you  there  before  daylight.  Wait 
in  the  forest  till  the  table  is  pushed  into  full  view  of 
the  doorway,  and  you  see  three  candles  out  of  four  blown 
out  and  one  relighted — or,  should  the  lights  be  put  out 
here  while  you  watch  them,  wait  till  three  candles  are 
lighted  and  then  two  put  out.  At  either  of  these  signals 
run  back  as  hard  as  you  can,  for  it  will  mean  that  I  am 
waiting  for  you  here." 

While  he  was  speaking,  the  girl  had  sought  and  seized 
one  of  his  hands.  She  did  not  press  it ;  she  held  it  loosely, 
as  it  were  timidly,  caressingly.  It  was  no  grasp;  it  was 
a  mere  contact,  as  if  only  to  make  sure  that  he  was  there, 
that  he  was  real  and  no  mere  darker  shadow  in  the  ob- 
scurity. The  warmth  of  her  hand  gave  Heyst  a  strange, 
intimate  sensation  of  all  her  person.  He  had  to  fight  down 
a  new  sort  of  emotion,  which  almost  unmanned  him.  He 
went  on,  whispering  sternly : 

"But  if  you  see  no  such  signals,  don't  let  anything — 
fear,  curiosity,  despair,  or  hope — entice  you  back  to  this 
house;  and  with  the  first  sign  of  the  dawn  steal  away 
along  the  edge  of  the  clearing  till  you  strike  the  path. 
Wait  no  longer,  because  I  shall  probably  be  dead." 

The  murmur  of  the  word  "Never!"  floated  into  his 
ear  as  if  it  had  formed  itself  in  the  air. 

"You  know  the  path,"  he  continued.  "Make  your  way 
to  the  barricade.  Go  to  Wang — yes,  to  Wang.  Let  nothing 
stop  you !"  It  seemed  to  him  that  the  girl's  hand  trembled 
a  little.  "The  worst  he  can  do  to  you  is  to  shoot  you; 
but  he  won't.  I  really  think  he  won't,  if  I  am  not  there. 
Stay  with  the  villagers,  with  the  wild  people,  and  fear 
nothing.  They  will  be  more  awed  by  you  than  you  can  be 
frightened  of  them.  Davidson's  bound  to  turn  up  before 
very  long.  Keep  a  look-out  for  a  passing  steamer.  Think 
of  some  sort  of  signal  to  call  him." 


350  VICTORY 

She  made  no  answer.  The  sense  of  the  heavy,  brooding 
silence  in  the  outside  world  seemed  to  enter  and  fill  the 
room — the  oppressive  infinity  of  it,  without  breath, 
without  light.  It  was  as  if  the  heart  of  hearts  had  ceased 
to  beat  and  the  end  of  all  things  had  come. 

"Have  you  understood  ?  You  are  to  run  out  of  the  house 
at  once,"  Heyst  whispered  urgently. 

She  lifted  his  hand  to  her  lips  and  let  it  go.  He  was 
startled. 

''Lena !"  he  cried  out  under  his  breath. 

She  was  gone  from  his  side.  He  dared  not  trust  him- 
self— no,  not  even  to  the  extent  of  a  tender  word. 

Turning  to  go  out,  he  heard  a  thud  somewhere  in  the 
house.  To  open  the  door,  he  had  first  to  lift  the  curtain ; 
he  did  so  with  his  face  over  his  shoulder.  The  merest 
trickle  of  light,  coming  through  the  keyhole  and  one  or 
two  cracks,  was  enough  for  his  eyes  to  see  her  plainly, 
all  black,  down  on  her  knees,  with  her  head  and  arms 
flung  on  the  foot  of  the  bed — all  black  in  the  desolation 
of  a  mourning  sinner.  What  was  this?  A  suspicion  that 
there  were  everywhere  more  things  than  he  could  un- 
derstand crossed  Heyst's  mind.  Her  arm,  detached  from 
the  bed,  motioned  him  away.  He  obeyed,  and  went  out, 
full  of  disquiet. 

The  curtain  behind  him  had  not  ceased  to  tremble 
when  she  was  up  on  her  feet,  close  against  it,  listening 
for  sounds,  for  words,  in  a  stooping,  tragic  attitude  of 
stealthy  attention,  one  hand  clutching  at  her  breast  as  if 
to  compress,  to  make  less  loud  the  beating  of  her  heart. 
Heyst  had  caught  Mr.  Jones's  secretary  in  the  contempla- 
tion of  his  closed  writing-desk.  Ricardo  might  have  been 
meditating  how  to  break  into  it ;  but  when  he  turned  about 
suddenly,  he  showed  so  distorted  a  face  that  it  made 
Heyst  pause  in  wonder  at  the  upturned  whites  of  the 
eyes,  which  were  blinking  horribly,  as  if  the  man  were 
inwardly  convulsed. 


VICTORY  351 

"I  thought  you  were  never  coming/'  Ricardo  mum- 
bled. 

"I  didn't  know  you  were  pressed  for  time.  Even  if 
your  going  away  depends  on  this  conversation,  as  you 
say,  I  doubt  if  you  are  the  men  to  put  to  sea  on  such  a 
night  as  this,'*  said  Heyst,  motioning  Ricardo  to  precede 
him  out  of  the  house. 

With  feHne  undulations  of  hip  and  shoulder,  the  secre- 
tary left  the  room  at  once.  There  was  something  cruel 
in  the  absolute  dumbness  of  the  night.  The  great  cloud 
covering  half  the  sky  hung  right  against  one,  like  an 
enormous  curtain  hiding  menacing  preparations  of  vio- 
lence. As  the  feet  of  the  two  men  touched  the  ground, 
a  rumble  came  from  behind  it,  preceded  by  a  swift, 
mysterious  gleam  of  light  on  the  waters  of  the  bay. 

"Ha!"  said  Ricardo.  "It  begins." 

"It  may  be  nothing  in  the  end,"  observed  Heyst,  step- 
ping along  steadily. 

"No!  Let  it  come!"  Ricardo  said  viciously.  "I  am  in 
the  humour  for  it!" 

By  the  time  the  two  men  had  reached  the  other  bun- 
galow, the  far-off  modulated  rumble  growled  incessantly, 
while  pale  lightning  in  waves  of  cold  fire  flooded  and  ran 
off  the  island  in  rapid  succession.  Ricardo,  unexpectedly, 
dashed  ahead  up  the  steps  and  put  his  head  through  the 
doorway. 

"Here  he  is,  governor!  Keep  him  with  you  as  long  as 
you  can — ^till  you  hear  me  whistle.  I  am  on  the  track." 

He  flung  these  words  into  the  room  with  inconceivable 
speed,  and  stood  aside  to  let  the  visitor  pass  through  the 
doorway;  but  he  had  to  wait  an  appreciable  moment, 
because  Heyst,  seeing  his  purpose,  had  scornfully  slowed 
his  pace.  When  Heyst  entered  the  room  it  was  with  a 
smile,  the  Heyst  smile,  lurking  under  his  martial  mous- 
tache. 


XI 

Two  candles  were  burning  on  the  stand-up  desk.  Mr. 
Jones,  tightly  enfolded  in  an  old  but  gorgeous  blue  silk 
dressing-gown,  kept  his  elbows  close  against  his  sides 
and  his  hands  deeply  plunged  into  the  extraordinarily 
deep  pockets  of  the  garment.  The  costume  accentuated  his 
emaciation.  He  resembled  a  painted  pole  leaning  against 
the  edge  of  the  desk,  with  a  dried  head  of  dubious  dis- 
tinction stuck  on  the  top  of  it.  Ricardo  lounged  in  the 
doorway.  Indifferent,  in  appearance,  to  what  was  going 
on,  he  was  biding  his  time.  At  a  given  moment,  between 
two  flickers  of  lightning,  he  melted  out  of  his  frame  into 
the  outer  air.  His  disappearance  was  observed  on  the  in- 
stant by  Mr.  Jones,  who  abandoned  his  nonchalant  im- 
mobility against  the  desk,  and  made  a  few  steps  calcu- 
lated to  put  him  between  Heyst  and  the  doorway. 

"It's  awfully  close,"  he  remarked. 

Heyst,  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  had  made  up  his 
mind  to  speak  plainly. 

"We  haven't  met  to  talk  about  the  weather.  You 
favoured  me  earlier  in  the  day  with  a  rather  cryptic 
phrase  about  yourself.  *I  am  he  that  is,'  you  said.  What 
does  that  mean?" 

Mr.  Jones,  without  looking  at  Heyst,  continued  his 
absent-minded  movements  till,  attaining  the  desired  posi- 
tion, he  brought  his  shoulders  with  a  thump  against  the 
wall  near  the  door,  and  raised  his  head.  In  the  emotion 
of  the  decisive  moment  his  haggard  face  glistened  with 
perspiration.  Drops  ran  down  his  hollow  cheeks  and 
almost  blinded  the  spectral  eyes  in  their  bony  caverns. 

352 


VICTORY  353 

"It  means  that  I  am  a  person  to  be  reckoned  with.  No 
— stop!  Don*t  put  your  hand  into  your  pocket — don't." 

His  voice  had  a  wild,  unexpected  shrillness.  Heyst 
started,  and  there  ensued  a  moment  of  suspended  anima- 
tion, during  which  the  thunder's  deep  bass  muttered  dis- 
tantly and  the  doorway  to  the  right  of  Mr.  Jones  flickered 
with  bluish  light.  At  last  Heyst  shrugged  his  shoulders ; 
he  even  looked  at  his  hand.  He  didn't  put  it  in  his  pocket, 
however.  Mr.  Jones,  glued  against  the  wall,  watched  him 
raise  both  his  hands  to  the  ends  of  his  horizontal  mous- 
taches, and  answered  the  note  of  interrogation  in  his 
steady  eyes. 

"A  matter  of  prudence,"  said  Mr.  Jones  in  his  natural 
hollow  tones,  and  with  a  face  of  deathlike  composure. 
"A  man  of  your  free  life  has  surely  perceived  that.  You 
are  a  much  talked-about  man,  Mr.  Heyst — and  though 
as  far  as  I  understand,  you  are  accustomed  to  employ 
the  subtler  weapons  of  intelligence,  still  I  can't  afford 
to  take  any  risks  of  the — er — ^grosser  methods.  I  am  not 
unscrupulous  enough  to  be  a  match  for  you  in  the  use 
of  intelligence;  but  I  assure  you,  Mr.  Heyst,  that  in  the 
other  way  you  are  no  match  for  me.  I  have  you  covered 
at  this  very  moment.  You  have  been  covered  ever  since 
you  entered  this  room.  Yes — from  my  pocket." 

During  this  harangue  Heyst  looked  deliberately  over 
his  shoulder,  stepped  back  a  pace,  and  sat  down  on  the 
end  of  the  camp  bedstead.  Leaning  his  elbow  on  one 
knee,  he  laid  his  cheek  in  the  palm  of  his  hand  and  seemed 
to  meditate  on  what  he  should  say  next.  Mr.  Jones, 
planted  against  the  wall,  was  obviously  waiting  for  some 
sort  of  overture.  As  nothing  came,  he  resolved  to  speak 
himself ;  but  he  hesitated.  For,  though  he  considered  that 
the  most  difficult  step  had  been  taken,  he  said  to  himself 
that  every  stage  of  progress  required  great  caution,  lest 
the    man,    in    Ricardo's    phraseology,    should    "start    to 


354  VICTORY 

prance'' — which  would  be  most  inconvenient.  He  fell 
back  on  a  previous  statement: 

"And  I  am  a  person  to  be  reckoned  with." 

The  other  man  went  on  looking  at  the  floor,  as  if  he 
were  alone  in  the  room.  There  was  a  pause. 

"You  have  heard  of  me,  then?"  Heyst  said  at  length, 
looking  up. 

"I  should  think  so!  We  have  been  staying  at  Schom- 
berg's  hotel." 

"Schom "  Heyst  choked  on  the  w^ord. 

"What's  the  matter,  Mr.  Heyst?" 

"Nothing.  Xausea,"  Heyst  said  resignedly.  He  re- 
sumed his  former  attitude  of  meditative  indifference. 
''What  is  this  reckoning  you  are  talking  about?'*  he 
asked  after  a  time,  in  the  quietest  possible  tone.  'T  don't 
know  you." 

"It's  obvious  that  we  belong  to  the  same — social 
sphere,"  began  ^Ir.  Jones  with  languid  irony.  Inwardly 
he  was  as  watchful  as  he  could  be.  "Something  has  driven 
you  out — the  originality  of  your  ideas,  perhaps.  Or  your 
tastes." 

yiv.  Jones  indulged  in  one  of  his  ghastly  smiles.  In 
repose  his  features  had  a  curious  character  of  evil,  ex- 
hausted austerity;  but  when  he  smiled,  the  w^hole  mask 
took  on  an  unpleasantly  infantile  expression.  A  recru- 
descence of  the  rolling  thunder  invaded  the  room  loudly, 
and  passed  into  silence. 

"You  are  not  taking  this  very  well,"  obser\'ed  Mr. 
Jones.  This  was  what  he  said,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  he 
thought  that  the  business  was  shaping  quite  satisfactorily. 
The  man,  he  said  to  himself,  had  no  stomach  for  a  fight. 
Aloud  he  continued:  "Come!  You  can't  expect  to  have 
it  always  your  own  way.  You  are  a  man  of  the  world." 

"And  you?"  Heyst  interrupted  him  unexpectedly. 
"How  do  you  define  yourself?" 

"I,  my  dear  sir?  In  one  way  I  am — ^yes,   I  am  the 


VICTORY  3SS 

world  itself,  come  to  pay  you  a  visit.  In  another  sense 
I  am  an  outcast — almost  an  outlaw.  If  you  prefer  a  less 
materialistic  view,  I  am  a  sort  of  fate — ^the  retribution 
that  waits  its  time." 

"I  wish  to  goodness  you  were  the  commonest  sort  of 
ruffian!"  said  Heyst,  raising  his  equable  gaze  to  Mr. 
Jones.  "One  would  be  able  to  talk  to  you  straight,  then, 
and  hope  for  some  humanity.  As  it  is " 

"I  dislike  violence  and  ferocity  of  every  sort  as  much  as 
you  do,"  Mr.  Tones  declared,  looking  very  languid  as  he 
leaned  against  the  wall,  but  speaking  fairly  loud.  "You  can 
ask  my  Martin  if  it  is  not  so.  This,  Mr.  Heyst,  is  a  soft 
age.  It  is  also  an  age  without  prejudices.-  I've  heard  that 
you  are  free  from  them  yourself.  You  mustn't  be  shocked 
if  I  tell  you  plainly  that  we  are  after  your  money — or 
I  am,  if  you  prefer  to  make  me  alone  responsible.  Pedro, 
of  course,  knows  no  more  of  it  than  any  other  animal 
would.  Ricardo  is  of  the  faithful  retainer  class — ^abso- 
lutely identified  with  all  my  ideas,  wishes,  and  even 
whims." 

Mr.  Jones  pulled  his  left  hand  out  of  his  pocket,  got  a 
handkerchief  out  of  another,  and  began  to  wipe  the 
perspiration  from  his  forehead,  neck  and  chin.  The  ex- 
citement from  which  he  suffered  made  his  breathing 
visible.  In  his  long  dressing-gown  he  had  the  air  of  a 
convalescent  invalid  who  had  imprudently  overtaxed  his 
strength.  Heyst,  broad-shouldered,  robust,  watched  the 
operation  from  the  end  of  the  camp  bedstead,  very  calm, 
his  hands  on  his  knees. 

"And  by  the  by,"  he  asked,  "where  is  he  now,  that 
henchman  of  yours?  Breaking  into  my  desk?" 

"That  would  be  crude.  Still,  crudeness  is  one  of  life's 
conditions."  There  was  the  slightest  flavour  of  banter  in 
the  tone  of  Ricardo's  governor.  "Conceivp.ble,  but  un- 
likely. Martin  is  a  Httle  crude;  but  you  are  not,  Mr. 
Heyst.   To  tell   you  the  truth,   I    don't   know   precisely 


3s6  VICTORY 

where  he  is.  He  has  been  a  little  mysterious  of  late;  but 
he  has  my  confidence.  No,  don't  get  up,  Mr.  Heyst !" 

The  viciousness  of  his  spectral  face  was  indescribable. 
Heyst,  who  had  moved  a  little,  was  surprised  by  the 
disclosure. 

"It  was  not  my  intention,''  he  said. 

"Pray  remain  seated,"  Mr.  Jones  insisted  in  a  languid 
voice,  but  with  a  very  determined  glitter  in  his  black 
eye-caverns. 

"If  you  were  more  observant,"  said  Heyst  with  dis- 
passionate contempt,  "you  would  have  known  before  I 
had  been  five  minutes  in  the  room  that  I  had  no  weapon 
of  any  sort  on  me." 

"Possibly ;  but  pray  keep  your  hands  still.  They  are 
very  well  where  they  are.  This  is  too  big  an  affair  for  me 
to  take  any  risks." 

"Big?  Too  big?"  Heyst  repeated  with  genuine  surprise. 
"Good  Heavens !  Whatever  you  are  looking  for,  there's 
very  little  of  it  here — ^very  little  of  anything." 

"You  would  naturally  say  so,  but  that's  not  what  we 
have  heard,"  retorted  Mr.  Jones  quickly,  with  a  grin  so 
ghastly  that  it  was  impossible  to  think  it  voluntary. 

Heyst's  face  had  grown  very  gloomy.  He  knitted  his 
brows. 

"What  have  you  heard?"  he  asked. 

"A  lot,  Mr.  Heyst — a  lot,"  affirmed  Mr.  Jones.  He  was 
trying  to  recover  his  manner  of  languid  superiority.  "We 
have  heard,  for  instance,  of  a  certain  Mr.  Morrison,  once 
your  partner." 

Heyst  could  not  repress  a  slight  movement. 

"Aha!"  said  Mr.  Jones,  with  a  sort  of  ghostly  glee  on 
his  face. 

The  muffled  thunder  resembled  the  echo  of  a  distant 
cannonade  below  the  horizon,  and  the  two  men  seemed  to 
be  listening  to  it  in  sullen  silence. 


VICTORY  357 

"This  diabolical  calumny  will  end  in  actually  and  liter- 
ally taking  my  life  from  me,"  thought  Heyst. 

Then,  suddenly,  he  laughed.  Portentously  spectral,  Mr. 
Jones  frowned  at  the  sound. 

"Laugh  as  much  as  you  please,"  he  said.  'T,  who  have 
been  hounded  out  from  society  by  a  lot  of  highly  moral 
souls,  can't  see  anything  funny  in  that  story.  But  here 
we  are,  and  you  will  now  have  to  pay  for  your  fun,  Mr. 
Heyst." 

"You  have  heard  a  lot  of  ugly  lies,"  observed  Heyst. 
"Take  my  word  for  it." 

"You  would  say  so,  of  course — very  natural.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  I  haven't  heard  very  much.  Strictly  speak- 
ing, it  was  Martin.  He  collects  information,  and  so  on. 
You  don't  suppose  I  would  talk  to  that  Schomberg  animal 
more  than  I  could  help  ?  It  was  Martin  whom  he  took  into 
his  confidence." 

"The  stupidity  of  that  creature  is  so  great  that  it  be- 
comes formidable,"  Heyst  said,  as  if  speaking  to  him- 
self. 

Involuntarily,  his  mind  turned  to  the  girl,  wandering 
in  the  forest,  alone  and  terrified.  Would  he  ever  see  her 
again?  At  that  thought  he  nearly  lost  his  self-possession. 
But  the  idea  that  if  she  followed  his  instructions  those 
men  were  not  likely  to  find  her,  steadied  him  a  little. 
They  did  not  know  that  the  island  had  any  inhabitants; 
and  he  himself  once  disposed  of,  they  would  be  too  anx- 
ious to  get  away  to  waste  time  hunting  for  a  vanished 
girl. 

All  this  passed  through  Heyst's  mind  in  a  'flash,  as 
men  think  in  moments  of  danger.  He  looked  speculatively 
at  Mr.  Jones,  who,  of  course,  had  never  for  a  moment 
taken  his  eyes  from  his  intended  victim.  And  the  convic- 
tion came  to  Heyst  that  this  outlaw  from  the  highet 
spheres  was  an  absolutely  hard  and  pitiless  scoundrel. 


35^  VICTORY 

Mr.  Jones's  voice  made  him  start. 

"It  would  be  useless,  for  instance,  to  tell  me  that  your 
Chinaman  has  run  off  with  your  money.  A  man  living 
alone  with  a  Chinaman  on  an  island  takes  care  to  conceal 
property  of  that  kind  so  well  that  the  devil  himself " 

"Certainly,"  Heyst  muttered. 

Again,  with  his  left  hand,  Mr.  Jones  mopped  his 
frontal  bone,  his  stalk-like  neck,  his  razor  jaws,  his  flesh- 
less  chin.  Again  his  voice  faltered  and  his  aspect  became 
still  more  gruesomely  malevolent,  as  of  a  wicked  and 
pitiless  corpse. 

"I  see  what  you  mean,"  he  cried,  "but  you  mustn't 
put  too  much  trust  in  your  ingenuity.  You  don't  strike 
me  as  a  very  ingenious  person,  Mr.  Heyst.  Neither  am  I. 
My  talents  lie  another  way.  But  Martin " 

"Who  is  now  engaged  in  rifling  my  desk,"  interjected 
Heyst. 

"I  don't  think  so.  What  I  was  going  to  say  is  that 
Martin  is  much  cleverer  than  a  Chinaman.  Do  you  believe 
in  racial  superiority,  Mr.  Heyst?  I  do,  firmly.  Martin  is 
great  at  ferreting  out  such  secrets  as  yours,  for  instance." 

"Secrets  like  mine!"  repeated  Heyst  bitterly.  "Well, 
I  wish  him  joy  of  all  he  can  ferret  out!" 

"That's  very  kind  of  you,"  remarked  Mr.  Jones.  He 
was  beginning  to  be  anxious  for  Martin's  return.  Of 
iron  self-possession  at  the  gaming-table,  fearless  in  a 
sudden  affray,  he  found  that  this  rather  special  kind  of 
work  was  telling  on  his  nerves.  "Keep  still  as  you  are!" 
he  cried  sharply. 

"I've  told  you  I  am  not  armed,"  said  Heyst,  folding 
his  arms  on  his  breast. 

"I  am  really  inclined  to  believe  that  you  are  not," 
admitted  Mr.  Jones  seriously.  "Strange!"  he  mused  aloud, 
the  caverns  of  his  eyes  turned  upon  Heyst.  Then  briskly : 
'*But  my  object  is  to  keep  you  in  this  room.  Don't  pro- 
voke me,  by  some  unguarded  movement,  to  smash  your 


VICTORY  359 

knee  or  do  something  definite  of  that  sort/'  He  passed 
his  tongue  over  his  Hps,  which  were  dry  and  black,  while 
his  forehead  glistened  with  moisture.  "I  don't  know  if  it 
wouldn't  be  better  to  do  it  at  once !" 

"He  who  deliberates  is  lost/'  said  Heyst  with  grave 
mockery. 

Mr.  Jones  disregarded  the  remark.  He  had  the  air  of 
communing  with  himself. 

"Physically  I  am  no  match  for  you/'  he  said  slowly, 
his  black  gaze  fixed  upon  the  man  sitting  on  the  end  of 
the  bed.  "You  could  spring " 

"Are  you  trying  to  frighten  yourself?"  asked  Heyst 
abruptly.  "You  don't  seem  to  have  quite  enough  pluck 
for  your  business.  Why  don't  you  do  it  at  once?" 

Mr.  Jones,  taking  violent  offence,  snorted  like  a  savage 
skeleton. 

"Strange  as  it  may  seem  to  you,  it  is  because  of  my 
origin,  my  breeding,  my  traditions,  my  early  associations, 
and  such-like  trifles.  Not  everybody  can  divest  himself 
of  the  prejudices  of  a  gentleman  as  easily  as  you  have 
done,  Mr.  Heyst.  But  don't  worry  about  my  pluck.  If 
you  were  to  make  a  clean  spring  at  me,  you  would  re- 
ceive in  mid  air,  so  to  speak,  something  that  would  make 
you  perfectly  harmless  by  the  time  you  landed.  No,  don't 
misapprehend  us,  Mr.  Heyst.  We  are — er — adequate 
bandits;  and  we  are  after  the  fruit  of  your  labours  as  a 
— er — successful  swindler.  It's  the  way  of  the  world — 
gorge  and  disgorge!" 

He  leaned  wearily  the  back  of  his  head  against  the 
wall.  His  vitality  seemed  exhausted.  Even  his  sunken 
eyelids  drooped  within  the  bony  sockets.  Only  his  thin, 
waspish,  beautifully  pencilled  eyebrows,  drawn  together 
a  little,  suggested  the  will  and  the  power  to  sting — some- 
thing vicious,  unconquerable,  and  deadly. 

"Fruits !  Swindler !"  repeated  Heyst,  without  heat, 
almost    without    contempt.    "You    are    giving    yourself 


36o  VICTORY 

no  end  of  trouble,  you  and  your  faithful  henchman,  to 
crack  an  empty  nut.  There  are  no  fruits  here,  as  you 
imagine.  There  are  a  few  sovereigns,  which  you  may 
have  if  you  like;  and  since  you  have  called  yourself  a 
bandit " 

*'Yaas!"  drawled  Mr.  Jones.  "That,  rather  than  a 
swindler.  Open  warfare  at  least !" 

''Very  good !  Only  let  me  tell  you  that  there  were  never 
in  the  world  two  more  deluded  bandits — never!" 

Hey  St  uttered  these  words  with  such  energy  that  Mr. 
Jones,  stiffening  up,  seemed  to  become  thinner  and  taller 
in  his  metallic  blue  dressing-gown  against  the  white- 
washed wall. 

''Fooled  by  a  silly  rascally  innkeeper !"  Heyst  went  on. 
"Talked  over  like  a  pair  of  children  with  a  promise  of 
sweets !" 

"I  didn't  talk  with  that  disgusting  animal,"  muttered 
Mr.  Jones  sullenly;  "but  he  convinced  Martin,  who  is 
no  fool." 

"I  should  think  he  wanted  very  much  to  be  con- 
vinced," said  Heyst,  with  the  courteous  intonation  so 
vvell  known  in  the  islands.  "I  don't  want  to  disturb  your 
touching  trust  in  your — ^your  follower,  but  he  must  be 
the  most  credulous  brigand  in  existence.  What  do  you 
imagine?  If  the  story  of  my  riches  w^ere  ever  so  true, 
do  you  think  Schomberg  would  have  imparted  it  to  you 
from  sheer  altruism?  Is  that  the  way  of  the  world,  Mr. 
Jones?" 

For  a  moment  the  lower  jaw  of  Ricardo's  gentleman 
dropped;  but  it  came  up  with  snap  of  scorn,  and  he  said 
with  spectral  intensity : 

"The  beast  is  cowardly !  He  was  frightened,  and  w^anted 
to  get  rid  of  us,  if  you  want  to  know,  Mr.  Heyst.  I  don't 
know  that  the  material  inducement  was  so  very  great, 
but  I  was  bored,  and  we  decided  to  accept  the  bribe. 
I  don't  regret  it.  All  my  life  I  have  been  seeking  new 


VICTORY  361 

impressions,  and  you  have  turned  out  to  be  something 
quite  out  of  the  common.  Martin,  of  course,  looks  to  the 
material  results.  He's  simple — and  faithful — and  won- 
derfully acute." 

"Ah,  yes !  He's  on  the  track" — and  now  Heyst's  speech 
had  the  character  of  politely  grim  raillery — ''but  not 
sufficiently  on  the  track,  as  yet,  to  make  it  quite  convenient 
to  shoot  me  without  more  ado.  Didn't  Schomberg  tell  you 
precisely  where  I  conceal  the  fruit  of  my  rapines?  Pah! 
Don't  you  know  he  would  have  told  you  anything,  true 
or  false,  from  a  very  clear  motive  ?  Revenge !  Mad  hate — 
the  unclean  idiot !" 

Mr.  Jones  did  not  seem  very  much  moved.  On  his 
right  hand  the  doorway  incessantly  flickered  with  dis- 
tant lightning,  and  the  continuous  rumble  of  thunder 
went  on  irritatingly,  like  the  growl  of  an  inarticulate 
giant  .muttering  fatuously. 

Heyst  overcame  his  immense  repugnance  to  allude 
to  her  whose  image,  cowering  in  the  forest,  was  con- 
stantly before  his  eyes,  with  all  the  pathos  and  force  of 
its  appeal,  august,  pitiful,  and  almost  holy  to  him.  It 
was  in  a  hurried,  embarrassed  manner  that  he  went  on : 

"If  it  had  not  been  for  that  girl  whom  he  persecuted 
with  his  insane  and  odious  passion,  and  who  threw  her- 
self on  my  protection,  he  would  never  have — but  you 
know  well  enough !" 

"I  dont  know!"  burst  out  Mr.  Jones  with  amazing 
heat.  "That  hotel-keeper  tried  to  talk  to  me  once  of 
some  girl  he  had  lost,  but  I  told  him  I  didn't  want  to 
hear  any  of  his  beastly  women  stories.  It  had  some- 
thing to  do  with  you,  had  it?" 

Heyst  looked  on  serenely  at  this  outburst,  then  lost 
his  patience  a  little. 

"What  sort  of  comedy  is  this?  You  don't  mean  to  say 
that  you  didn't  know  that  I  had — that  there  was  a  girl 
living  with  me  here?" 


362  VICTORY 

One  could  see  that  the  eyes  of  Mr.  Jones  had  become 
nxed  in  the  depths  of  their  black  holes  by  the  gleam  of 
white  becoming  steady  there.  The  whole  man  seemed 
frozen  still. 

"Here!  Here!"  he  screamed  out  twice.  There  was  no 
mistaking  his  astonishment,  his  shocked  incredulity — 
something  like  frightened  disgust. 

Heyst  was  disgusted  also,  but  in  another  way.  He  too 
was  incredulous.  He  regretted  having  mentioned  the  girl ; 
but  the  thing  was  done,  his  repugnance  had  been  over- 
come in  the  heat  of  his  argument  against  the  absurd 
bandit. 

"Is  it  possible  that  you  didn't  know  of  that  significant 
fact?"  he  inquired.  "Of  the  only  effective  truth  in  the 
welter  of  silly  lies  that  deceived  you  so  easily?" 

"No,  I  didn't!"  Mr.  Jones  shouted.  "But  Martin  did!" 
he  added  in  a  faint  whisper,  which  Heyst's  ears  just 
caught  and  no  more. 

"I  kept  her  out  of  sight  as  long  as  I  could,"  said  Heyst. 
"Perhaps,  with  your  bringing  up,  traditions,  and  so  on, 
you  will  understand  my  reason  for  it." 

"He  knew.  He  knew  before!"  Mr.  Jones  mourned  in 
a  hollow  voice.  "He  knew  of  her  from  the  first  !'* 

Backed  hard  against  the  wall,  he  no  longer  watched 
Heyst.  He  had  the  air  of  a  man  who  had  seen  an  abyss 
yawning  under  his  feet. 

"If  I  want  to  kill  him,  this  is  my  time,"  thought  Heyst; 
but  he  did  not  move. 

Next  moment  Mr.  Jones  jerked  his  head  up,  glaring 
with  sardonic  fury. 

"I  have  a  good  mind  to  shoot  you,  you  woman-ridden 
hermit,  you  man  in  the  moon,  that  can't  exist  without — 
no,  it  won't  be  you  that  I'll  shoot.  It's  the  other  woman- 
lover — ^the  prevaricating,  sly,  low-class,  amorous  cuss! 
And  he  shaved — shaved  under  my  very  nose.  I'll  shoot 
him!" 


VICTORY  363 

"He*s  gone  mad,"  thought  Heyst,  startled  by  the 
spectre's  sudden  fury. 

He  felt  himself  more  in  danger,  nearer  death,  than 
ever  since  he  had  entered  that  room.  An  insane  bandit 
is  a  deadly  combination.  He  did  not,  could  not  know 
that  Mr.  Jones  was  quick-minded  enough  to  see  already 
the  end  of  his  reign  over  his  excellent  secretary's 
thoughts  and  feelings ;  the  coming  failure  of  Ricardo's 
fidelity.  A  woman  had  intervened !  A  woman,  a  girl,  who 
apparently  possessed  the  power  to  awaken  men's  dis- 
gusting folly.  Her  power  had  been  proved  in  two  instances 
already — the  beastly  innkeeper,  and  that  man  with 
moustaches,  upon  whom  Mr.  Jones,  his  deadly  right  hand 
twitching  in  his  pocket,  glared  more  in  repulsion  than  in 
anger.  The  very  object  of  the  expedition  was  lost  from 
view  in  his  sudden  and  overwhelming  sense  of  utter 
insecurity.  And  this  made  Mr.  Jones  feel  very  savage; 
but  not  against  the  man  with  the  moustaches.  Thus,  while 
Heyst  was  really  feeling  that  his  life  was  not  worth  two 
minutes'  purchase,  he  heard  himself  addressed  with  no 
affectation  of  languid  impertinence,  but  with  a  burst  of 
feverish  determination. 

"Here !  Let's  call  a  truce !"  said  Mr.  Jones. 

Heyst's  heart  was  too  sick  to  allow  him  to  smile. 

"Have  I  been  making  war  on  you?"  he  asked  wearily. 
"How  do  you  expect  me  to  attach  any  meaning  to  your 
words?"  he  went  on.  "You  seem  to  be  a  morbid,  sense- 
less sort  of  bandit.  We  don't  speak  the  same  language. 
HI  were  to  tell  you  why  I  am  here,  talking  to  you,  you 
wouldn't  believe  me,  because  you  would  not  understand 
me.  It  certainly  isn't  the  love  of  life,  from  which  I 
have  divorced  myself  long  ago — not  sufficiently,  perhaps; 
but  if  you  are  thinking  of  yours,  then  I  repeat  to  you 
that  it  has  never  been  in  danger  from  me.  I  am  un- 
armed." 

Mr.  Jones  was  biting  his  lower  lip,  in  a  deep  medita- 


364  VICTORY 

tion.  It  was  only  toward  the  last  that  he  looked  at  Heyst. 

"Unarmed,  eh?"  Then  he  burst  out  violently:  "I  tell 
you,  a  gentleman  is  no  match  for  the  common  herd.  And 
yet  one  must  make  use  of  the  brutes.  Unarmed,  eh?  And 
I  suppose  that  creature  is  of  the  commonest  sort.  You 
could  hardly  have  got  her  out  of  a  drawing-room.  Though 
they're  all  alike,  for  that  matter.  Unarmed!  It's  a  pity. 
I  am  in  much  greater  danger  than  you  are,  or  were — 
or  I  am  much  mistaken.  But  I  am  not — I  know  my  man !" 

He  lost  his  air  of  mental  vacancy  and  broke  out  into 
shrill  exclamations.  To  Heyst  they  seemed  madder  than 
anything  that  had  gone  before. 

''On  the  track!  On  the  scent!"  he  cried,  forgetting 
himself  to  the  point  of  executing  a  dance  of  rage  in  the 
middle  of  the  floor. 

Heyst  looked  on,  fascinated  by  this  skeleton  in  a  gay 
dressing-gown,  jerkily  agitated  like  a  grotesque  toy  on 
the  end  of  an  invisible  string.  It  became  quiet  suddenly. 

"I  might  have  smelt  a  rat!  I  always  knew  that  this 
would  be  the  danger."  He  changed  suddenly  to  a  confi- 
dential tone,  fixing  his  sepulchral  stare  on  Heyst.  "And 
yet  here  I  am,  taken  in  by  the  fellow,  like  the  veriest 
fool.  Tve  been  always  on  the  watch  for  some  such  beastly 
influence,  but  here  I  am,  fairly  caught.  He  shaved  himself 
right  in  front  of  me — and  I  never  guessed !" 

The  shrill  laugh,  following  on  the  low  tone  of  secrecy, 
sounded  so  convincingly  insane  that  Heyst  got  up  as  if 
moved  by  a  spring.  Mr.  Jones  stepped  back  two  paces, 
but  displayed  no  uneasiness. 

"It's  as  clear  as  daylight!"  he  uttered  mournfully,  and 
fell  silent. 

Behind  him  the  doorway  flickered  lividly,  and  the 
sound  as  of  a  naval  action  somewhere  away  on  the  horizon 
filled  the  breathless  pause.  Air.  Jones  inclined  his  head 
on  his  shoulder.  His  mood  had  completely  changed. 

"What  do  you  say,  unarmed  man?  Shall  we  go  and 


VICTORY  36s 

see  what  is  detaining  my  trusted  Martin  so  long?  He 
asked  me  to  keep  you  engaged  in  friendly  conversation 
till  he  made  a  further  examination  of  that  track.  Ha,  ha, 
ha!" 

"He  is  no  doubt  ransacking  my  house,"  said  Heyst. 

He  was  bewildered.  It  seemed  to  him  that  all  this  was 
an  incomprehensible  dream,  or  perhaps  an  elaborate 
other- world  joke,  contrived  by  that  spectre  in  a  gorgeous 
dressing-gown. 

Mr.  Jones  looked  at  him  with  a  horrible,  cadaverous 
smile  of  inscrutable  mockery,  and  pointed  to  the  door. 
Heyst  passed  through  it  first.  His  feelings  had  become 
so  blunted  that  he  did  not  care  how  soon  he  was  shot  in 
the  back. 

"How  oppressive  the  air  is!'*  the  voice  of  Mr.  Jones 
said  at  his  elbow.  "This  stupid  storm  gets  on  my  nerves.. 
I  would  welcome  some  rain,  though  it  would  be  un- 
pleasant to  get  wet.  On  the  other  hand,  this  exasperating 
thunder  has  the  advantage  of  covering  the  sound  of  our 
approach.  The  lightning's  not  so  convenient.  Ah,  your 
house  is  fully  illuminated !  My  clever  Martin  is  punish- 
ing your  stock  of  candles.  He  belongs  to  the  uncere- 
monious classes,  which  are  also  unlovely,  untrustworthy, 
and  so  on." 

"I  left  the  candles  burning,"  said  Heyst,  "to  save  him 
trouble." 

"You  really  believed  he  would  go  to  your  house?"  asked 
Mr.  Jones  with  genuine  interest. 

"I  had  that  notion,  strongly.  I  do  believe  he  is  there 
now." 

"And  you  don't  mind?" 

"No!" 

"You  don't?"  Mr.  Jones  stopped  to  wonder.  "You  are 
an  extraordinary  man,"  he  said  suspiciously,  and  moved 
on,  touching  elbows  with  Heyst. 

In  the  latter's  breast  dwelt  a  deep  silence,  the  com- 


366  VICTORY 

plete  silence  of  unused  faculties.  At  this  moment,  by 
simply  shouldering  Mr.  Jones,  he  could  have  thrown  him 
down  and  put  himself  by  a  couple  of  leaps  beyond  the 
certain  aim  of  the  revolver;  but  he  did  not  even  think 
of  that.  His  very  will  seemed  dead  of  weariness.  He 
moved  automatically,  his  head  low,  like  a  prisoner  cap- 
tured by  the  evil  power  of  a  masquerading  skeleton  out 
of  a  grave.  Mr.  Jones  took  charge  of  the  direction.  They 
fetched  a  wide  sweep.  The  echoes  of  distant  thunder 
seemed  to  dog  their  footsteps. 

''By  the  by,"  said  Mr.  Jones,  as  if  unable  to  restrain 
his  curiosity,  ''aren't  you  anxious  about  that — ouch! — 
that  fascinating  creature  to  whom  you  owe  whatever 
pleasure  you  can  find  in  our  visit?" 

"I  have  placed  her  in  safety,"  said  Heyst.  "I — I  took 
good  care  of  that." 

Mr.  Jones  laid  a  hand  on  his  arm. 

"You  have  ?  Look !  Is  that  what  you  mean  ?" 

Heyst  raised  his  head.  In  the  flicker  of  lightning  the 
desolation  of  the  cleared  ground  on  his  left  leaped  out 
and  sank  into  the  night,  together  with  the  elusive  forms 
of  things  distant,  pale,  unearthly.  But  in  the  brilliant 
square  of  the  door  he  saw  the  girl — the  woman  he  had 
longed  to  see  once  more — as  if  enthroned,  with  her  hands 
on  the  arms  of  the  chair.  She  was  in  black;  her  face  was 
white,  her  head  dreamily  inclined  on  her  breast.  He  saw 
her  only  as  low  as  her  knees.  He  saw  her — there,  in  the 
room,  alive  with  a  sombre  reality.  It  was  no  mocking 
vision.  She  was  not  in  the  forest — but  there !  She  sat  there 
in  the  chair,  seemingly  without  strength,  yet  without 
fear,  tenderly  stooping. 

"Can  you  understand  their  power?"  whispered  the 
hot  breath  of  Mr.  Jones  into  his  ear.  "Can  there  be  a 
more  disgusting  spectacle?  It's  enough  to  make  the  earth 
detestable.  She  seems  to  have  found  her  affinity.  Move 


VICTORY  36> 

on  closer.  If  I  have  to  shoot  you  in  the  end,  then  perhaps 
you  will  die  cured." 

Heyst  obeyed  the  pushing  pressure  of  a  revolver  barrel 
between  his  shoulders.  He  felt  it  distinctly,  but  he  did  not 
feel  the  ground  under  his  feet.  They  found  the  steps, 
without  his  being  aware  that  he  was  ascending  them — 
slowly,  one  by  one.  Doubt  entered  into  him — a  doubt  of 
a  new  kind,  formless,  hideous.  It  seemed  to  spread  itself 
all  over  him,  enter  his  limbs,  and  lodge  in  his  entrails. 
He  stopped  suddenly,  with  a  thought  that  he  who  experi- 
enced such  a  feeling  had  no  business  to  live — or  perhaps 
was  no  longer  living. 

Everything — ^the  bungalow,  the  forest,  the  open  ground 
— trembled  incessantly;  the  earth,  the  sky  itself,  shiv- 
ered all  the  time,  and  the  only  thing  immovable  in  the 
shuddering  universe  was  the  interior  of  the  lighted  room 
and  the  woman  in  black  sitting  in  the  light  of  the  eight 
candle-flames.  They  flung  around  her  an  intolerable 
brilliance  which  hurt  his  eyes,  seemed  to  sear  his  very 
brain  with  the  radiation  of  infernal  heat.  It  was  some 
time  before  his  scorched  eyes  made  out  Ricardo  seated  on 
the  floor  at  some  little  distance,  his  back  to  the  doorway, 
but  only  partly  so ;  one  side  of  his  upturned  face  showing 
the  absorbed,  all-forgetful  rapture  of  his  contemplation. 

The  grip  of  Mr.  Jones's  hard  claw  drew  Heyst  back  a 
little.  In  the  roll  of  thunder,  swelling  and  subsiding,  he 
whispered  in  his  ear  a  sarcastic :  "Of  course !" 

A  great  shame  descended  upon  Heyst — ^the  shame  of 
guilt,  absurd  and  maddening.  Mr.  Jones  drew  him  still 
farther  back  into  the  darkness  of  the  verandah. 

"This  is  serious,"  he  went  on,  distilling  his  ghostly 
venom  into  Heyst's  very  ear,  "I  had  to  shut  my  eyes 
many  times  to  his  little  flings;  but  this  is  serious.  He 
has  found  his  soul-mate.  Mud  souls,  obscene  and  cun- 
ning! Mud  bodies,  too — the  mud  of  the  gutter!  I  tell 
you,  we  are  no  match  for  the  vile  populace.  I,  even  I. 


368  VICTORY 

have  been  nearly  caught.  He  asked  me  to  detain  you  till 
he  gave  me  the  signal.  It  won't  be  you  that  I'll  have  to 
shoot,  but  him.  I  wouldn't  trust  him  near  me  for  five 
minutes  after  this!'* 

He  shook  Heyst's  arm  a  trifle. 

"If  you  had  not  happened  to  mention  the  creature, 
we  should  both  have  been  dead  before  morning.  He 
would  have  stabbed  you  as  you  came  down  the  steps 
after  leaving  me,  and  then  he  would  have  walked  up  to 
me  and  planted  the  same  knife  between  my  ribs.  He 
has  no  prejudices.  The  viler  the  origin,  the  greater  the 
freedom  of  these  simple  souls !" 

He  drew  a  cautious,  hissing  breath  and  added  in  an 
agitated  murmur :  "I  can  see  right  into  his  mind ;  I  have 
been  nearly  caught  napping  by  his  cunning." 

He  stretched  his  neck  to  peer  into  the  room  from  the 
side.  Heyst,  too,  made  a  step  forward,  under  the  slight 
impulse  of  that  slender  hand  clasping  his  arm  with  a 
thin,  bony  grasp. 

"Behold!"  the  skeleton  of  the  crazy  bandit  jabbered 
thinly  into  his  ear  in  spectral  fellowship.  "Behold  the 
simple  Acis  kissing  the  sandals  of  the  nymph,  on  the  way 
to  her  lips,  all  forgetful,  while  the  menacing  fife  of  Poly- 
phemus already  sounds  close  at  hand — ^if  he  could  only 
hear  it !  Stoop  a  little." 


XII 

On  returning  to  the  Heyst  bungalow,  rapid  as  if  on 
wings,  Ricardo  found  Lena  waiting  for  him.  She  was 
dressed  in  black;  and  at  once  his  uplifting  exultation 
was  replaced  by  an  awed  and  quivering  patience  before 
her  white  face,  before  the  immobility  of  her  reposeful 
pose,  the  more  amazing  to  him  who  had  encountered  the 
strength  of  her  limbs  and  the  indomitable  spirit  in  her 
body.  She  had  come  out  after  Heyst's  departure  and 
had  sat  down  under  the  portrait  to  wait  for  the  return 
of  the  man  of  violence  and  death.  While  lifting  the 
curtain,  she  felt  the  anguish  of  her  disobedience  to  her 
lover,  which  was  soothed  by  a  feeling  she  had  known 
before — a  gentle  flood  of  penetrating  sweetness.  She  was 
not  automatically  obeying  a  momentary  suggestion;  she 
was  under  influences  more  deliberate,  more  vague,  and 
of  greater  potency.  She  had  been  prompted,  not  by  her 
will,  but  by  a  force  that  was  outside  of  her  and  more 
worthy.  She  reckoned  upon  nothing  definite;  she  had 
calculated  nothing.  She  saw  only  her  purpose  of  captur- 
ing death — savage,  sudden,  irresponsible  death,  prowling 
round  the  man  who  possessed  her ;  death  embodied  in  the 
knife  ready  to  strike  into  his  heart.  No  doubt  it  had  been 
a  sin  to  throw  herself  into  his  arms.  With  that  inspiration 
that  descends  at  times  from  above  for  the  good  or  evil 
of  our  common  mediocrity,  she  had  a  sense  of  having  been 
for  him  only  a  violent  and  sincere  choice  of  curiosity 
and  pity — 3,  thing  that  passes.  She  did  not  know  him.  If 
he  were  to  go  away  from  her  and  disappear,  she  would 
utter  no  reproach,  she  would  not  resent  it ;  for  she  would 

369 


S70  VICTORY 

hold  in  herself  the  impress  of  something  most  rare  and 
precious — his  embraces  made  her  own  by  her  courage 
in  saving  his  life. 

All  she  thought  of — ^the  essence  of  her  tremors,  her 
flushes  of  heat,  and  her  shudders  of  cold — was  the  ques- 
tion how  to  get  hold  of  that  knife,  the  mark  and  sign 
of  stalking  death.  A  tremor  of  impatience  to  clutch  the 
frightful  thing,  glimpsed  once  and  unforgettable,  agi- 
tated her  hands. 

The  instinctive  flinging  forward  of  these  hands  stopped 
Ricardo  dead  short  between  the  door  and  her  chair, 
with  the  ready  obedience  of  a  conquered  man  who  can 
bide  his  time.  Her  success  disconcerted  her.  She  listened 
to  the  man's  impassioned  transports  of  terrible  eulogy 
and  even  more  awful  declarations  of  love.  She  was  even 
able  to  meet  his  eyes,  oblique,  apt  to  glide  away,  throw- 
ing feral  gleams  of  desire. 

''No!"  he  was  saying,  after  a  fiery  outpouring  of 
words  in  which  the  most  ferocious  phrases  of  love  were 
mingled  with  wooing  accents  of  entreaty.  "I  will  have 
no  more  of  it!  Don't  you  mistrust  me.  I  am  sober  in 
my  talk.  Feel  how  quietly  my  heart  beats.  Ten  times 
to-day  when  you,  you,  you,  swam  in  my  eye,  I  thought 
it  would  burst  one  of  my  ribs  or  leap  out  of  my  throat. 
It  has  knocked  itself  dead  tired,  waiting  for  this  evening, 
for  this  very  minute.  And  now  it  can  do  no  more.  Feel 
how  quiet  it  is!" 

He  made  a  step  forward,  but  she  raised  her  clear 
voice  commandingly : 

"No  nearer !" 

He  stopped  with  a  smile  of  imbecile  worship  on  his 
lips,  and  with  the  delighted  obedience  of  a  man  who 
could  at  any  moment  seize  her  in  his  hands  and  dash 
her  to  the  grouiid. 

"Ah!  If  I  had  taken  you  by  the  throat  this  morning 
and  had  my  way  with  you,  I  should  never  have  known 


VICTORY  37it 

what  you  are.  And  now  I  do.  You  are  a  wonder!  And 
so  am  I,  in  my  way.  I  have  nerve,  and  I  have  brains, 
too.  We  should  have  been  lost  many  times  but  for  me. 
I  plan — I  plot  for  my  gentleman.  Gentleman — pah !  I  am 
sick  of  him.  And  you  are  sick  of  yours,  eh?  You,  you!'* 

He  shook  all  over ;  he  cooed  at  her  a  string  of  endearing 
names,  obscene  and  tender,  and  then  asked  abruptly : 

"Why  don't  you  speak  to  me?" 

"It's  my  part  to  listen,"  she  said,  giving  him  an  in- 
scrutable smile,  with  a  flush  on  her  cheek  and  her  lips 
cold  as  ice. 

"But  you  will  answer  me?" 

"Yes,"  she  said,  her  eyes  dilated  as  if  with  sudden 
interest. 

"Where's  that  plunder?  Do  you  know?" 

"No!  Not  yet." 

"But  there  is  plunder  stowed  somewhere  that's  worth 
having?" 

"Yes,  I  think  so.  But  who  knows?"  she  added  after  a 
pause. 

"And  who  cares?"  he  retorted  recklessly.  "I've  had 
enough  of  this  crawling  on  my  belly.  It's  you  who  are 
my  treasure.  It's  I  who  found  you  out  where  a  gentle- 
man had  buried  you  to  rot  for  his  accursed  pleasure !" 

He  looked  behind  him  and  all  around  for  a  seat,  then 
turned  to  her  his  troubled  eyes  and  dim  smile. 

"I  am  dog-tired,"  he  said,  and  sat  down  on  the  floor. 
"I  went  tired  this  morning,  since  I  came  in  here  and 
started  talking  to  you — ^as  tired  as  if  I  had  been  pouring 
my  life-blood  here  on  these  planks  for  you  to  dabble  your 
white  feet  in." 

Unmoved,  she  nodded  at  him  thoughtfully.  Woman- 
like, all  her  faculties  remained  concentrated  on  her  heart's 
desire — on  the  knife — while  the  man  went  on  babbling 
insanely  at  her  feet,  ingratiating  and  savage,  almost  crazy 
with  elation.  But  he,  too,  was  holding  on  to  his  purpose. 


372  VICTORY 

"For  you!  For  you  I  will  throw  away  money,  lives 
— all  the  lives  but  mine !  What  you  want  is  a  man,  a 
master  that  will  let  you  put  the  heel  of  your  shoe  on  his 
neck;  not  that  skulker,  w^ho  will  get  tired  of  you  in  a 
year — and  you  of  him.  And  then  what?  You  are  not  the 
one  to  sit  still ;  neither  am  I.  I  live  for  myself,  and  you 
shall  live  for  yourself,  too — not  for  a  Swedish  baron. 
They  make  a  convenience  of  people  like  you  and  me.  A 
gentleman  is  better  than  an  employer,  but  an  equal  part- 
nership against  all  the  'yporcrits  is  the  thing  for  you  and 
me.  We'll  go  on  w^andering  the  world  over,  you  and  I, 
both  free  and  both  true.  You  are  no  cage  bird.  We'll 
rove  together,  for  we  are  of  them  that  have  no  homes. 
We  are  born  rovers !" 

She  listened  to  him  with  the  utmost  attention,  as  if 
any  unexpected  word  might  give  her  some  sort  of  open- 
ing to  get  that  dagger,  that  awful  knife — ^to  disarm  mur- 
der itself,  pleading  for  her  love  at  her  feet.  Again  she 
nodded  at  him  thoughtfully,  rousing  a  gleam  in  his  yellow 
eyes,  yearning  devotedly  upon  her  face.  When  he  hitched 
himself  a  little  closer,  her  soul  had  no  movement  of  re- 
coil. This  had  to  be.  Anything  had  to  be  which  would 
bring  the  knife  within  her  reach.  He  talked  more  confi- 
dentially now. 

*'We  have  met,  and  their  time  has  come,"  he  began, 
looking  up  into  her  eyes.  'The  partnership  between  me 
and  my  gentleman  has  to  be  ripped  up.  There's  no  room 
for  him  where  we  two  are.  Why,  he  would  shoot  me  like 
a  dog !  Don't  you  worry.  This  will  settle  it  not  later  than 
to-night !" 

He  tapped  his  folded  leg  below  the  knee,  and  was  sur- 
prised, flattered,  by  the  lighting  up  of  her  face,  which 
stooped  towards  him  eagerly  and  remained  expectant, 
the  lips  girlishly  parted,  red  in  the  pale  face,  and  quiver- 
ing in  the  quickened  drawing  of  her  breath. 

"You  marvel,  you  miracle,  you  man's   luck  and   joy 


VICTORY  373 

— one  in  a  million!  No,  the  only  one.  You  have  found 
your  man  in  me/*  he  whispered  tremulously.  "Listen! 
They  are  having  their  last  talk  together;  for  Fll  do  for 
your  gentleman,  too,  by  midnight !" 

Without  the  slightest  tremor  she  murmured,  as  soon 
as  the  tightening  of  her  breast  had  eased  off  and  the 
words  would  come: 

"I  wouldn't  be  in  too  much  of  a  hurry — with  him." 

The  pause,  the  tone,  had  all  the  value  of  meditated 
advice. 

"Good,  thrifty  girl!"  he  laughed  low,  with  a  strange 
feline  gaiety,  expressed  by  the  undulating  movement  of 
his  shoulders  and  the  sparkling  snap  of  his  oblique  eyes. 
"You  are  still  thinking  about  the  chance  of  that  swag. 
You'll  make  a  good  partner,  that  you  will!  And,  I  say, 
what  a  decoy  you  will  make !  Jee-miny !" 

He  was  carried  away  for  a  moment,  but  his  face  dark- 
ened swiftly. 

"No!  No  reprieve.  What  do  you  think  a  fellow  is — 
a  scarecrow  ?  All  hat  and  clothes  and  no  feeling,  no  inside, 
no  brain  to  make  fancies  for  himself?  No!"  he  went 
on  violently.  "Never  in  his  life  will  he  go  again  into 
that  room  of  yours — ^never  any  more!" 

A  silence  fell.  He  was  gloomy  with  the  torment  of  his 
jealousy,  and  did  not  even  look  at  her.  She  sat  up  and 
slowly,  gradually,  bent  lower  and  lower  over  him,  as  if 
ready  to  fall  into  his  arms.  He  looked  up  at  last,  and 
checked  this  droop  unwittingly. 

"Say!  You,  who  are  up  to  fighting  a  man  with  your 
bare  hands,  could  you — eh? — could  you  manage  to  stick 
one  with  a  thing  like  that  knife  of  mine?" 

She  opened  her  eyes  very  wide  and  gave  him  a  wild 
smile. 

"How  can  I  tell?"  she  whispered  enchantingly.  "Will 
you  let  me  have  a  look  at  it?" 

Without  taking  his  eyes  from  her  face,  he  pulled  the 


374  VICTORY 

knife  out  of  its  sheath — a  short,  broad,  cruel,  double- 
edged  blade  with  a  bone  handle — and  only  then  looked 
down  at  it. 

"A  good  friend,"  he  said  simply.  "Take  it  in  your  hand 
and  feel  the  balance,"  he  suggested. 

At  the  moment  when  she  bent  forward  to  receive  it 
from  him,  there  was  a  flash  of  fire  in  her  mysterious 
eyes — a  red  gleam  in  the  white  mist  which  j-wrapped  the 
promptings  and  longings  of  her  soul.  She  had  done  it! 
The  very  sting  of  death  was  in  her  hands ;  the  venom 
of  the  viper  in  her  paradise,  extracted,  safe  in  her  posses- 
sion— and  the  viper's  head  all  but  lying  under  her  heel. 
Ricardo,  stretched  on  the  mats  of  the  floor,  crept  closer 
and  closer  to  the  chair  in  which  she  sat. 

All  her  thoughts  were  busy  planning  how  to  keep 
possession  of  that  weapon  which  had  seemed  to  have 
drawn  into  itself  every  danger  and  menace  on  the  death- 
ridden  earth.  She  said  with  a  low  laugh,  the  exultation 
in  which  he  failed  to  recognize: 

"I  didn't  think  that  you  would  ever  trust  me  with  that 
thing!" 

"Why  not?" 

"For  fear  I  should  suddenly  strike  you  with  it." 

"What  for  ?  For  this  morning's  work  ?  Oh,  no !  There's 
no  spite  in  you  for  that.  You  forgave  me.  You  saved 
me.  You  got  the  better  of  me,  too.  And  anyhow,  what 
good  would  it  be?" 

"No,  no  good,"  she  admitted. 

In  her  heart  she  felt  that  she  would  not  know  how  to 
do  it;  that  if  it  came  to  a  struggle,  she  would  have  to 
drop  the  dagger  and  fight  with  her  hands. 

"Listen.  W^hen  we  are  going  about  the  world  together, 
you  shall  always  call  me  husband.  Do  you  hear?" 

"Yes,"  she  said,  bracing  herself  for  the  contest,  in 
tvhatever  shape  it  was  coming. 

The  knife  was  lying  in  her  lap.  She  let  it  slip  into  the 


VICTORY  375 

fold  of  her  dress,  and  laid  her  forearms  with  clasped  fin- 
gers over  her  knees,  which  she  pressed  desperately  to- 
gether. The  dreaded  thing  was  out  of  sight  at  last.  She 
felt  a  dampness  break  out  all  over  her. 

"I  am  not  going  to  hide  you,  like  that  good-for-nothing, 
finicky,  sneery  gentleman.  You  shall  be  my  pride  and  my 
chum.  Isn't  that  better  than  rotting  on  an  island  for  the 
pleasure  of  a  gentleman,  till  he  gives  you  the  chuck?'' 

"I'll  be  anything  you  Hke,"  she  said. 

In  his  intoxication  he  crept  closer  with  every  word 
she  uttered,  with  every  movement  she  made. 

"Give  your  foot,"  he  begged  in  a  timid  murmur,  and 
in  the  full  consciousness  of  his  power. 

Anything!  Anything  to  keep  murder  quiet  and  dis- 
armed till  strength  had  returned  to  her  limbs  and  she 
could  make  up  her  mind  what  to  do.  Her  fortitude  had 
been  shaken  by  the  very  facility  of  success  that  had  come 
to  her.  She  advanced  her  foot  forward  a  little  from  under 
the  hem  of  her  skirt ;  and  he  threw  himself  on  it  greedily. 
She  was  not  even  aware  of  him.  She  had  thought  of  the 
forest,  to  which  she  had  been  told  to  run.  Yes,  the  forest 
— that  was  the  place  for  her  to  carry  off  the  terrible  spoil, 
the  sting  of  vanquished  death.  Ricardo,  clasping  her 
ankle,  pressed  his  lips  time  after  time  to  the  instep, 
muttering  gasping  words  that  were  like  sobs,  making  little 
noises  that  resembled  the  sounds  of  grief  and  distress. 
Unheard  by  them  both,  the  thunder  growled  distantly 
with  angry  modulations  of  its  tremendous  voice,  while 
the  world  outside  shuddered  incessantly  around  the  dead 
stillness  of  the  room  where  the  framed  profile  of  Heyst's 
father  looked  severely  into  space. 

Suddenly  Ricardo  felt  himself  spurned  by  the  foot  he 
had  been  cherishing — spurned  with  a  push  of  such  vio- 
lence into  the  very  hollow  of  his  throat  that  it  swung 
him  back  instantly  into  an  upright  position  on  his  knees. 
He  read  his  danger  in  the  stony  eyes  of  the  girl;  and 


376  VICTORY 

in  the  very  act  of  leaping  to  his  feet  he  heard  sharply, 
detached  on  the  comminatory  voice  of  the  storm,  the 
brief  report  of  a  shot  which  half  stunned  him,  in  the 
manner  of  a  blow.  He  turned  his  burning  head,  and  saw 
Heyst  towering  in  the  doorway.  The  thought  that  the 
beggar  had  started  to  prance  darted  through  his  mind.  For 
a  fraction  of  a  second  his  distracted  eyes  sought  for  his 
weapon  all  over  the  floor.  He  couldn't  see  it. 

"Stick  him,  you !"  he  called  hoarsely  to  the  girl,  and 
dashed  headlong  for  the  door  of  the  compound. 

While  he  thus  obeyed  the  instinct  of  self-preservation, 
his  reason  was  telling  him  that  he  could  not  possibly 
reach  it  alive.  It  flew  open,  however,  with  a  crash,  be- 
fore his  launched  weight,  and  instantly  he  swung  it  to 
behind  him.  There,  his  shoulder  leaning  against  it,  his 
hands  clinging  to  the  handle,  dazed  and  alone  in  the  night 
full  of  shudders  and  muttered  menaces,  he  tried  to  pull 
himself  together.  He  asked  himself  if  he  had  been  shot 
at  more  than  once.  His  shoulder  was  wet  with  the  blood 
trickling  from  his  head.  Feeling  above  his  ear,  he  ascer- 
tained that  it  was  only  a  graze,  but  the  shock  of  the  sur- 
prise had  unmanned  him   for  the  moment. 

What  the  deuce  was  the  governor  about,  to  let  the 
beggar  break  loose  like  this?  Or — was  the  governor  dea4, 
perhaps  ? 

The  silence  within  the  room  awed  him.  Of  going  back 
there  could  be  no  question. 

**But  she  knows  how  to  take  care  of  herself,''  he 
muttered. 

She  had  his  knife.  It  was  she  now  who  was  deadly, 
while  he  was  disarmed,  no  good  for  the  moment.  He 
stole  away  from  the  door,  staggering,  the  warm  trickle 
running  down  his  neck,  to  find  out  what  had  become  of 
the  governor  and  to  provide  himself  with  a  firearm  from 
the  armoury  in  the  trunks. 


XIII 

Mr.  Jones,  after  firing  his  shot  over  Heysfs  shoulder, 
had  thought  it  proper  to  dodge  away.  Like  the  spectre  he 
was,  he  had  noiselessly  vanished  from  the  verandah.  Heyst 
stumbled  into  the  room  and  looked  around.  All  the  objects 
in  there — ^the  books,  the  gleam  of  old  silver  familiar  to 
him  from  boyhood,  the  very  portrait  on  the  wall — seemed 
shadowy,  unsubstantial,  the  dumb  accomplices  of  an  amaz- 
ing dream-plot  ending  in  an  illusory  effect  of  awakening 
and  the  impossibility  of  ever  closing  his  eyes  again.  With 
dread  he  forced  himself  to  look  at  the  girl.  Still  in  the 
chair,  she  was  leaning  forward  far  over  her  knees,  and  had 
hidden  her  face  in  her  hands.  Heyst  remembered  Wang 
suddenly.  How  clear  all  this  was — and  how  extremely 
amusing!  Very. 

She  sat  up  a  little,  then  leaned  back,  and  taking  her 
hands  from  her  face,  pressed  both  of  them  to  her  breast, 
as  if  moved  to  the  heart  by  seeing  him  there  looking  at 
her  with  a  black,  horror-struck  curiosity.  He  would  have 
pitied  her,  if  the  triumphant  expression  of  her  face  had 
not  given  him  a  shock  which  destroyed  the  balance  of  his 
feelings.  She  spoke  with  an  accent  of  wild  joy: 

"I  knew  you  would  come  back  in  time !  You  are  safe 
now.  I  have  done  it !  I  would  never,  never  have  let  him 

"  Her  voice  died  out,  while  her  eyes  shone  at  him  as 

when  the  sun  breaks  through  a  mist.  "Never  get  it  back. 
Oh,  my  beloved  !'* 

He  bowed  his  head  gravely,  and  said  in  his  polite, 
Heystian  tone : 

"No  doubt  you  acted  from  instinct.  Women  have  been 
provided  with  their  own  weapon.  I  was  a  disarmed  man, 

377 


378  VICTORY 

I  have  been  a  disarmed  man  all  my  life  as  I  see  it  now. 
You  may  glory  in  your  resourcefulness  and  your  pro- 
found knowledge  of  yourself ;  but  I  may  say  that  the  other 
attitude,  suggestive  of  shame,  had  its  charm.  For  you  are 
full  of  charm !" 

The  exultation  vanished  from  her  face. 

"You  mustn't  make  fun  of  me  now.  I  know  no  shame. 
I  was  thanking  God  with  all  my  sinful  heart  for  having 
been  able  to  do  it — for  giving  you  to  me  in  that  way — oh, 
my  beloved — ^all  my  own  at  last !" 

He  stared  as  if  mad.  Timidly  she  tried  to  excuse  herself 
for  disobeying  his  directions  for  her  safety.  Every  modu- 
lation of  her  enchanting  voice  cut  deep  into  his  very 
breast,  so  that  he  could  hardly  understand  the  words  for 
the  sheer  pain  of  it.  He  turned  his  back  on  her;  but  a 
sudden  drop,  an  extraordinary  faltering  of  her  tone,  made 
him  spin  round.  On  her  white  neck  her  pale  head  dropped 
as  in  a  cruel  drought  a  withered  flower  droops  on  its 
stalk.  He  caught  his  breath,  looked  at  her  closely,  and 
seemed  to  read  some  awful  intelligence  in  her  eyes.  At  the 
moment  when  her  eyelids  fell  as  if  smitten  from  above  by 
an  invisible  power,  he  snatched  her  up  bodily  out  of  the 
chair,  and  disregarding  an  unexpected  metallic  clatter  on 
the  floor,  carried  her  off  into  the  other  room.  The  limpness 
of  her  body  frightened  him.  Laying  her  down  on  the  bed, 
he  ran  out  again,  seized  a  four-branched  candlestick  on 
the  table,  and  ran  back,  tearing  down  with  a  furious  jerk 
the  curtain  that  swung  stupidly  in  his  way;  but  after 
putting  the  candlestick  on  the  table  by  the  bed,  he  re- 
mained absolutely  idle.  There  did  not  seem  anything  more 
for  him  to  do.  Holding  his  chin  in  his  hand,  he  looked 
down  intently  at  her  still  face. 

"Has  she  been  stabbed  with  this  thing?"  asked  David- 
son, whom  suddenly  he  saw  standing  by  his  side  and  hold- 
ing up  Ricardo's  dagger  to  his  sight.  Heyst  uttered  no 
word  of  recognition  or  surprise.  He  gave  Davidson  only  a 


VICTORY  379 

dumb  look  of  unutterable  awe ;  then,  as  if  possessed  with 
a  sudden  fury,  started  tearing  open  the  front  of  the  girl's 
dress.  She  remained  insensible  under  his  hands,  and  Heyst 
let  out  a  groan  which  made  Davidson  shudder  inwardly — 
the  heavy  plaint  of  a  man  who  falls  clubbed  in  the  dark. 

They  stood  side  by  side,  looking  mournfully  at  the  little 
black  hole  made  by  Mr.  Jones's  bullet  under  the  swelling 
breast  of  a  dazzling  and  as  it  were  sacred  whiteness.  It 
rose  and  fell  slightly — so  slightly  that  only  the  eyes  of  the 
lover  could  detect  the  faint  stir  of  life.  Heyst,  calm  and 
utterly  unlike  himself  in  the  face,  moving  about  noise- 
lessly, prepared  a  wet  cloth,  and  laid  it  on  the  insignificant 
wound,  round  which  there  was  hardly  a  trace  of  blood  to 
mar  the  charm,  the  fascination,  of  that  mortal  flesh. 

Her  eyelids  fluttered.  She  looked  drowsily  about,  serene, 
as  if  fatigued  only  by  the  exertions  of  her  tremendous 
victory,  capturing  the  very  sting  of  death  in  the  service 
of  love.  But  her  eyes  became  very  wide  awake  when  they 
caught  sight  of  Ricardo's  dagger,  the  spoil  of  vanquished 
death,  which  Davidson  was  still  holding  unconsciously. 

"Give  it  to  me !"  she  said.  "It's  mine." 

Davidson  put  the  symbol  of  her  victory  into  her  feeble 
hands  extended  to  him  with  the  innocent  gesture  of  a 
child  reaching  eagerly  for  a  toy. 

"For  you,"  she  gasped,  turning  her  eyes  to  Heyst.  "Kill 
nobody." 

"No,"  said  Heyst,  taking  the  dagger  and  laying  it  gently 
on  her  breast,  while  her  hands  fell  powerless  by  her  side. 

The  faint  smile  on  her  deep-cut  lips  waned,  and  her 
head  sank  deep  into  the  pillow,  taking  on  the  majestic 
pallor  and  immobility  of  marble.  But  over  the  muscles, 
which  seemed  set  in  their  transfigured  beauty  for  ever, 
passed  a  slight  and  awful  tremor.  With  an  amazing 
strength  she  asked  loudly : 

"What's  the  matter  with  me?" 

"You  have  been  shot,   dear  Lena,"  Heyst  said  in  a 


38o  VICTORY 

steady  voice,  while  Davidson,  at  the  question,  turned  away 
and  leaned  his  forehead  against  the  post  of  the  foot  of 
the  bed. 

"Shot  ?  I  did  think,  too,  that  something  had  struck  me." 

Over  Samburan  the  thunder  had  ceased  to  growl  at 
last,  and  the  world  of  material  forms  shuddered  no  more 
under  the  emerging  stars.  The  spirit  of  the  girl  which  was 
passing  away  from  under  them  clung  to  her  triumph,  con- 
vinced of  the  reality  of  her  victory  over  death. 

"No  more,"  she  muttered.  "There  will  be  no  more !  Oh, 
my  beloved,"  she  cried  weakly,  "I've  saved  you!  Why 
don't  you  take  me  into  your  arms  and  carry  me  out  of 
this  lonely  place  ?" 

Heyst  bent  low  over  her,  cursing  his  fastidious  soul, 
which  even  at  that  moment  kept  the  true  cry  of  love 
from  his  lips  in  its  infernal  mistrust  of  all  life.  He  dared 
not  touch  her,  and  she  had  no  longer  the  strength  to  throw 
her  arms  about  his  neck. 

"Who  else  could  have  done  this  for  you?"  she  whispered 
gloriously. 

"No  one  in  the  world,"  he  answered  her  in  a  murmur 
of  unconcealed  despair. 

She  tried  to  raise  herself,  but  all  she  could  do  was  to 
lift  her  head  a  little  from  the  pillow.  With  a  terrified  and 
gentle  movement,  Heyst  hastened  to  slip  his  arm  under 
her  neck.  She  felt  relieved  at  once  of  an  intolerable  weight, 
and  was  content  to  surrender  to  him  the  infinite  weariness 
of  her  tremendous  achievement.  Exulting,  she  saw  herself 
extended  on  the  bed,  in  a  black  dress,  and  profoundly  at 
peace;  while,  stooping  over  her  with  a  kindly,  playful 
smile,  he  was  ready  to  lift  her  up  in  his  firm  arms  and 
take  here  into  the  sanctuary  of  his  innermost  heart — for 
ever !  The  flush  of  rapture  flooding  her  whole  being  broke 
out  in  a  smile  of  innocent,  girlish  happiness ;  and  with  that 
divine  radiance  on  her  lips  she  breathed  her  last,  trium- 
phant, seeking  for  his  glance  in  the  shades  of  death. 


XIV 

"Yes,  Excellency,"  said  Davidson  in  his  placid  voice; 
"there  are  more  dead  in  this  affair — more  white  people,  I 
mean — ^than  have  been  killed  in  many  of  the  battles  of  the 
last  Achin  v^ar/' 

Davidson  was  talking  with  an  Excellency,  because  what 
was  alluded  to  in  conversation  as  "the  mystery  of  Sam- 
buran"  had  caused  such  a  sensation  in  the  Archipelago 
that  even  those  in  the  highest  spheres  were  anxious  to  hear 
something  at  first  hand.  Davidson  had  been  summoned  to 
an  audience.  It  was  a  high  official  on  his  tour. 

"You  knew  the  late  Baron  Heyst  well  T* 

"The  truth  is  that  nobody  out  here  can  boast  of  having 
known  him  well,"  said  Davidson.  "He  was  a  queer  chap. 
I  doubt  if  he  himself  knew  how  queer  he  was.  But  every- 
body was  aware  that  I  was  keeping  my  eye  on  him  in  a 
friendly  way.  And  that's  how  I  got  the  warning  which 
made  me  turn  round  in  my  tracks  in  the  middle  of  my 
trip  and  steam  back  to  Samburan,  wh^re,  I  am  grieved  to 
say,  I  arrived  too  late." 

Without  enlarging  very  much,  Davidson  explained  to 
the  attentive  Excellency  how  a  woman,  the  wife  of  a  Cer- 
tain hotel-keeper  named  Schomberg,  had  overheard  two 
card-sharping  rascals  making  inquiries  from  her  husband 
as  to  the  exact  position  of  the  island.  She  caught  only  a 
few  words  referring  to  the  neighbouring  volcano,  but  these 
were  enough  to  arouse  her  suspicions — "which,"  went  on 
Davidson,  "she  imparted  to  me,  your  Excellency.  They 
were  only  too  well  founded !" 

381 


382  VICTORY 

"That  was  very  clever  of  her,"  remarked  the  great  man. 

** She's  much  cleverer  than  people  have  any  conception 
of,"  said  Davidson. 

But  he  refrained  from  disclosing  to  the  Excellency  the 
,  real  cause  which  had  sharpened  Mrs.  Schomberg's  wits. 
^  The  poor  woman  was  in  mortal  terror  of  the  girl  being 
brought  back  within  reach  of  her  infatuated  Wilhelm. 
Davidson  only  said  that  her  agitation  had  impressed  him ; 
but  he  confessed  that  while  going  back,  he  began  to  have 
his  doubts  as  to  their  being  anything  in  it. 

"I  steamed  into  one  of  those  silly  thunderstorms  that 
hang  about  the  volcano,  and  had  some  trouble  in  making 
the  island,"  narrated  Davidson.  "I  had  to  grope  my  way 
dead  slow  into  Diamond  Bay.  I  don't  suppose  that  any- 
body, even  if  looking  out  for  me,  could  have  heard  me  let 
go  the  anchor." 

He  admitted  that  he  ought  to  have  gone  ashore  at  once ; 
but  everything  was  perfectly  dark  and  absolutely  quiet. 
He  felt  ashamed  of  his  impulsiveness.  What  a  fool  he 
would  have  looked,  waking  up  a  man  in  the  middle  of  the 
night  just  to  ask  him  if  he  was  all  right !  And  then,  the 
girl  being  there,  he  feared  that  Heyst  would  look  upon 
his  visit  as  an  unwarrantable  intrusion. 

The  first  intimation  he  had  of  there  being  something 
wrong  was  a  big  white  boat,  adrift  with  the  dead  body 
of  a  very  hairy  man  inside,  bumping  against  the  bows  of 
his  steamer.  Then  indeed  he  lost  no  time  in  going  ashore 
— alone,  of  course,  from  motives  of  delicacy. 

"I  arrived  in  time  to  see  that  poor  girl  die,  as  I  have 
told  your  Excellency,"  pursued  Davidson.  'T  won't  tell 
you  what  a  time  I  had  with  him  afterwards.  He  talked  to 
me.  His  father  seems  to  have  been  a  crank,  and  to  have 
upset  his  head  when  he  was  young.  He  was  a  queer  chap. 
Practically  the  last  words  he  said  to  me,  as  we  came  out 
on  the  verandah,  were : 


VICTORY  383 

"  'Ah,  Davidson,  woe  to  the  man  whose  heart  has  not 
learned  while  young  to  hope,  to  love — and  to  put  its  trust 
in  life !' 

"As  we  stood  there,  just  before  I  left  him,  for  he  said 
he  wanted  to  be  alone  with  his  dead  for  a  time,  we  hear^l 
a  snarly  sort  of  voice  near  the  bushes  by  the  shore  callirlg 
out: 

"  'Is  that  you,  governor  ?' 

"  'Yes,  it's  me/ 

"  'J^^^^i^^y  •  I  thought  the  beggar  had  done  for  you.  He 
has  started  prancing  and  'nearly  had  me.  I  have  been 
dodging  around,  looking  for  you  ever  since.' 

"  'Well,  here  I  am,'  suddenly  screamed  the  other  voice, 
and  then  a  shot  rang  out. 

"  'This  time  he  has  not  missed  him,'  Heyst  said  to  me 
bitterly,  and  went  back  into  the  house. 

"I  returned  on  board  as  he  had  insisted  I  should  do.  I 
didn't  want  to  intrude  on  his  grief.  Later,  about  five  in  the 
morning,  some  of  my  calashes  came  running  to  me,  yelling 
that  there  was  a  fire  ashore.  I  landed  at  once,  of  course. 
The  principal  bungalow  was  blazing.  The  heat  drove  us 
back.  The  other  two  houses  caught  one  after  another  like 
kindling-wood.  There  was  no  going  beyond  the  shore  end 
of  the  jetty  till  the  afternoon." 

Davidson  sighed  placidly. 

"I  suppose  you  are  certain  that  Baron  Heyst  is 
dead?" 

"He  is — ashes,  your  Excellency,"  said  Davidson,  wheel- 
ing a  little;  "he  and  the  girl  together.  I  suppose  he 
couldn't  stand  his  thoughts  before  her  dead  body — and  fire 
purifies  everything.  That  Chinaman  of  whom  I  told  your 
Excellency  helped  me  to  investigate  next  day,  when  the 
embers  got  cooled  a  little.  We  found  enough  to  be  sure. 
He's  not  a  bad  Chinaman.  He  told  me  that  he  had  fol- 
lowed Heyst  and  the  girl  through  the  forest  from  pity. 


384  VICTORY 

and  partly  out  of  curiosity.  He  watched  the  house  till  he 
saw  Heyst  go  out,  after  dinner,  and  Ricardo  come  back 
alone.  While  he  was  dodging  there,  it  occurred  to  him 
that  he  had  better  cast  the  boat  adrift,  for  fear  those 
scoundrels  should  come  round  by  water  and  bombard  the 
village  from  the  sea  with  their  revolvers  and  Winchesters. 
He  judged  that  they  were  devils  enough  for  anything.  So 
he  walked  down  the  wharf  quietly ;  and  as  he  got  into  the 
boat,  to  cast  her  off,  that  hairy  man  who,  it  seems,  was 
dozing  in  her,  jumped  up  growling,  and  Wang  shot  him 
dead.  Then  he  shoved  the  boat  off  as  far  as  he  could 
and  went  away.*' 

There  was  a  pause.  Presently  Davidson  went  on,  in  his 
tranquil  manner: 

"Let  Heaven  look  after  what  has  been  purified.  The 
wind  and  rain  will  take  care  of  the  ashes.  The  carcass 
of  that  follower,  secretary,  or  whatever  the  unclean  ruffian 
called  himself,  I  left  where  it  lay,  to  swell  and  rot  in  the 
sun.  His  principal  had  shot  him  neatly  through  the  heart. 
Then,  apparently,  this  Jones  went  down  the  wharf  to  look 
for  the  boat  and  for  the  hairy  man.  I  suppose  he  tumbled 
into  the  water  by  accident — or  perhaps  not  by  accident.  The 
boat  and  the  man  were  gone,  and  the  scoundrel  saw  him- 
self all  alone,  his  game  clearly  up,  and  fairly  trapped.  Who 
knows  ?  The  water's  very  clear  there,  and  I  could  see  him 
hudded  up  on  the  bottom  between  two  piles,  like  a  heap 
of  bones  in  a  blue  silk  bag,  with  only  the  head  and  the  feet 
sticking  out.  Wang  was  very  pleased  when  he  discovered 
him.  That  made  everything  safe,  he  said,  and  he  went  at 
once  over  the  hill  to  fetch  his  Alfuro  woman  back  to  the 
hut." 

Davidson  took  out  his  handkerchief  to  wipe  the  per- 
spiration off  his  forehead. 

"And  then,  your  Excellency,  I  went  away.  There  was 
nothing  to  be  done  there." 


VICTORY  385 

"Clearly,"  assented  the  Excellency. 
Davidson,  thoughtful,  seemed  to  weigh  the  matter  in 
his  mind,  and  then  murmured  with  placid  sadness : 
"Nothing!" 

October,  1^12 — May,  1914. 


THE  END 


Modem  Library  of  the  World's  Best  Books 
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ADAMS,  HENRY  ' 

AIKEN,  CONRAD 

AIKEN,  CONRAD 
ANDERSON,  SHERWOOD 
BALZAC 

BEERBOHM,  MAX 
BENNETT,  ARNOLD 
BIERCE,  AMBROSE 
BOCCACCIO 
BRONTE,  CHARLOTTE 
BRONTE,  EMILY 
BUCK,  PEARL 
BURTON,  RICHARD 
BUTLER,  SAMUEL 
BUTLER,  SAMUEL 
CABELL,  JAMES  BRANCH 
CALDWELL,  ERSKINE 
CANFIELD,  DOROTHY 
CARROLL,  LEWIS 
CASANOVA,  JACQUES 
CELLINI,  BENVENUTO 
CERVANTES 
CHAUCER 
CHAUCER 
CONFUCIUS 
CONRAD,  JOSEPH 

CONRAD,  JOSEPH 

CONRAD,  JOSEPH 

CORNEILLE  and  RACINE 

CORVO,  FREDERICK  BARON 

CUMMINGS,  E.  E. 

DANTE 

DAUDET,  ALPHONSE 


The  Educati(?n  of  Henry  Adams  76 
A  Comprehensive  Anthology  of 

American  Verse  loi 
Modern  American  Poetry  127 
Winesburg,  Ohio  104 
Droll  Stories  193 
Zuleika  Dobson  116 
The  Old  Wives'  Tale  184 
In  the  Midst  of  Life  133 
The  Decameron  71 
Jane  Eyre  64 
Wuthering  Heights  106 
The  Good  Earth  2 
The  Arabian  Nights  201 
Erewhon  and  Erewhon  Revisited  136 
The  Way  of  All  Flesh  13 
Jurgen  15 

God's  Little  Acre  51 
The  Deepening  Stream  200 
Alice  in  Wonderland,  etc.  79 
Memoirs  of  Casanova  165 
Autobiography  of  Cellini  3 
Don  Quixote  174 
The  Canterbury  Tales  161 
Troilus  and  Cressida  126 
The  Wisdom  of  Confucius  7 
Heart  of  Darkness 
(In  Great  Modern  Short  Stories  168) 
Lord  Jim  186 
Victory  34 

Six  Plays  of  Corneille  and  Racine  194 
A  History  of  the  Borgias  192 
The  Enormous  Room  214 
The  Divine  Comedy  208 
Sapho  85 


DEFOE,  DANIEL 
DEWEY.  JOHN 
OICKENS,  CHARLES 
DICKENS,  CHARLES 
DICKENS,  CHARLES 
DINESEN,  ISAK 
DOS  PASSOS,  JOHN 
DOSTOYEVSKY,  FYODOR 
DOSTOYEVSKY,  FYODOR 
DOSTOYEVSKY,  FYODOR 
DOUGLAS,  NORMAN 
DREISER,  THEODORE 
DUMAS,  ALEXANDRE 
DUMAS,  ALEXANDRE 
DU  MAURIER,  GEORGE 
EDMAN,  IRWIN 
EDMONDS,  WALTER  D. 
ELLIS,  HAVELOCK 
EMERSON,  RALPH  WALDO 
FAULKNER.  WILLIAM 
FEUCHTWANGER,  UON 
FIELDING,  HENRY 
FIELDING,  HENRY 
riNEMAN,  IRVING 
FLAUBERT.  GUSTAVE 
FORESTER,  C.  S. 
FORSTER,  E.  M. 
FRANCE,  ANATOLE 
FRANCE,  ANATOLE 
FRANKLIN,  BENJAMIN 
GALSWORTHY,  JOHN 

GAUTIER,  THEOPHILE 

GEORGE,  HENRY 
GIDE,  ANDRE 
GISSING,  GEORGE 
GISSING,  GEORGE 
GLASGOW,  ELLEN 
GOETHE 
GOETHE 

GOGOL,  NIKOLAI 
GRAVES,  ROBERT 
HAMMETT,  DASHIELL 
HAMSUN,  KNUT 
HARDY,  THOMAS 
HARDY,  THOMAS 
WARDY,  THOMAS 


Moll  Flanders  ill 

Human  Nature  and  Conduct  173 

A  Tale  of  Two  Cities  189 

David  Coppcrficld  no 

Pickwick  Papers  204 

Seven  Gothic  Tales  54 

Three  Soldiers  205 

Crime  and  Punishment  199 

The  Brothers  Karamazov  15X 

The  Possessed  55 

South  Wind  5 

Sister  Carrie  8 

Camille  69 

The  Three  Musketeers  i^ 

Peter  Ibbetson  207 

The  Phijosophy  of  Plato  1 81 

Rome  Haul  191 

The  Dance  of  Life  160 

Essays  and  Other  Writing*  91 

Sanctuary  61 

Power  206 

Joseph  Andrews  1 17 

Tom  Jones  185 

Hear,  Ye  Sons  130 

Madame  Bovary  28 

The  African  Queen  loa 

A  Passage  to  India  218 

Crime  of  Sylvestre  Bonnard  21 

Penguin  Island  210 

Autobiography,  etc  39 

The  Apple  Tree 

(In  Great  Modem  Short  Stories  168) 
Mile.  De  Maupin, 

One  of  Cleopatra's  Nights  53 
Progress  and  Poverty  36 
The  Counterfeiters  187 
New  Grub  Street  125 
Private  Papers  of  Henry  Ryecroft  46 
Barren  Ground  25 
Faust  177 
The  Sorrows  of  Werther 

(In  Collected  German  Stories  108) 
Dead  Souls  40 
I,  Claudius  20 
The  Maltese  Falcon  45 
Growth  of  the  Soil  I2 
Jude  the  Obscure  135 
The  Mayor  of  Casterbridge  17 
The  Return  of  the  Native  121 


RARDY,  THOMAS 

HART,  LIDDELL 

HAWTHORNE,  NATHANIEL 

HEMINGWAY,  ERNEST 

HEMINGWAY,  ERNEST 

HEMON,  LOUIS 

HOMER 

HOMER 

HORACE 

HUDSON,  w.  a 

HUDSON,  W.  H. 
HUGHES,  RICHARD 
HUGO,  VICTOR 
HUNEKER,  JAMES  G. 
HUXLEY,  ALDOUS 
HUXLEY,  ALDOUS 
IBSEN,  HENRIK 
JAMES,  HENRY 
JAMES,  HENRY 
JAMES,  WILLIAM 
JAMES,  WILLIAM 
JEFFERS,  ROBINSON 

JOYCE,  JAMES 
JOYCE,  JAMES 

KUPRIN,  ALEXANDRE 
LAWRENCE,  D.  H. 
LAWRENCE.  D.  H. 
LAWRENCE,  D.  R 
LEWIS.  SINCLAIR 
LEWISOHN,  LUDWIG 
LONGFELLOW,  HENRY  W. 
LOUYS,  PIERRE 
LUDWIG,  EMIL 
LUNDBERG,  FERDINAND 
MACHIAVELU 

MALRAUX,  ANDRE 
MANN,  THOMAS 

MANSFIELD,  KATHERINE 
MARQUAND,  JOHN  P. 
MARX,  KARL 
MAUGHAM,  W.  SOMERSET 
MAUGHAM,  W.  SOMERSET 
MAUPASSANT,  GUY  DE 
McFEE,  WILLIAM 
MELVILLE,  HERMAN 
MEREDITH,  GEORGE 
MEREDITH,  GEORGE 
MEREJKOWSKI,  DMITRI 


Tess  of  the  D'Urbervilles  7a 

The  War  in  Outline  16 

The  Scarlet  Letter  93 

A  Farewell  to  Arms  19 

The  Sun  Also  Rises  170 

Maria  Chapdelaine  10 

The  Iliad  166 

The  Odyssey  167 

The  Complete  Works  of  141 

Green  Mansions  89 

The  Purple  Land  24 

A  High  Wind  in  Jamaica  112 

The  Hunchback  of  Notre  Dame  35 

Painted  Veils  43 

Antic  Hay  209 

Point  Counter  Point  180 

A  Doll's  House,  Ghosts,  etc.  6 

The  Portrait  of  a  Lady  107 

The  Turn  of  the  Screw  169 

The  Philosophy  of  William  James  114 

The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience  JQ 

Roan  Stallion;  Tamar  and  Other 
Poems  118 

DuUiners  124 

A  Portrait  oi:  the  Artist  at  a  Young 

Man  145 
Yama  203 
The  Rainbow  128 
Sons  and  Lovers  109 
Women  in  Love  68 
Arrowsmith  42 
The  Island  Within  123 
Poems  ^6 
Aphrodite  77 
Napoleon  95 
Imperial  Hearst  81 
The  Prince  and  The  Discourses  of 

Machiavelli  6^ 
Man's  Fate  23 
Death  in  Venice 

(In  Collected  German  Stories  108) 
The  Garden  Party  129 
The  Late  George  Apley  182 
Capital  and  Other  Writings  202 
Of  Human  Bondage  176 
The  Moon  and  Sixpence  27 
Best  Short  Stories  98 
Casuals  of  the  Sea  195 
Moby  Dick  119 
Diana  of  the  Crossways  I4 
The  Ordeal  of  Richard  Feverel  134 
The  Romance  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci  13I 


?//  ICFXLANEOUS 


MOLIERE 

MORLEY,  CHRISTOPHER 
MORLEY,  CHRISTOPHER 
NIETZSCHE,  FRIEDRICH 
ODETS,  CLIFFORD 
O'NEILL,  EUGENE 

O'NEILL,  EUGENE 

PATER,  WALTER 

PATER.  WALTER 

PEARSON,  EDMUND 

PEPYS,  SAMUEL 

PETRONIUS  ARBITER 

PLATO 

POE.  EDGAR  ALLAN 

POLO,  MARCO 

PORTER,  KATHERINE  ANNE 

PREVOST,  ANTOINE 

PROUST,  MARCEL 

PROUST,  MARCEL 

PROUST,  MARCEL 

PROUST,  MARCEL 

PROUST,  MARCEL 

RABELAIS 

READE.  CHARLES 

REED,  JOHN 

RENAN,  ERNEST 

ROSTAND,  EDMOND 

RUSSELL,  BERTRAND 


An  Anthology  of  American  Negro 

Literature  163 
An  Anthology  of  Light  Verse  4S 
Best  Ghost  Stories  73 
Best  Amer.  Humorous  Short  Stories  87 
Best  Russian  Short  Stories,  including 

Bunin's  The  Gentleman  from  San 

Francisco  18 
Eight  Famous  Elizabethan  Plays  94 
Five  Great  Modern  Irish  Plays  30 
Four  Famous  Greek  Plays  158 
Fourteen  Great  Detective  Stories  I44 
Great     German     Short    Novels    and 

Stories  108 
Great  Modern  Short  Stories  168 
The  Federalist  139 
The  Making  of  Man:  An  Outline  of 

Anthropology  149 
The  Making  of  Society:  An  Outline  of 

Sociology  183 
The  Short  Bible  57 
Outline  of  Abnormal  Psychology  152 
Outline  of  Psychoanalysis  66 
The  Sex  Problem  in  Modern  Society  198 
Plays  78 

Human  Being  74 
Parnassus  on  Wheels  190 
Thus  Spake  Zarathustra  9 
Six  Plays  of  67 
The  Emperor  Jones,  Anna  Christie  and 

The  Hairy  Ape  146 
Seven  Plays  of  the  Sea  iii 
The  Renaissance  86 
Marius  the  Epicurean  90 
Studies  in  Murder  113 
Samuel  Pepys'  Diary  103 
The  Satyricon  156 
The  Philosophy  of  Plato  181 
Best  Tales  82 

The  Travels  of  Marco  Polo  196 
Flowering  Judas  88 
Manon  Lescaut  85 
Cities  of  the  Plain  220 
The  Captive  120 
The  Guermantes  Way  213 
Swann's  Way  59 
Within  a  Budding  Grove  172 
Gargantua  and  Pantagruel  4 
The  Cloister  and  the  Hearth  62 
Ten  Days  that  Shook  the  World  215 
The  Life  of  Jesus  I40 
Cyrano  de  Bergerac  154 
Selected  Papers  of  Bertrand  Russell  137 


SAROYAN,  WILLIAM 

SCHOPENHAUER 
SCHREINER,  OLIVE 
SHEEAN,  VINCENT 
SMOLLETT,  TOBIAS 
SPINOZA 

STEINBECK,  JOHN 
STEINBECK,  JOHN 
STEINBECK,  JOHN 
STENDHAL 
STENDHAL 
STERNE,  LAURENCE 
STOKER,  BRAM 
STONE,  IRVING 
STRACHEY,  LYTTON 
SUDERMANN,  HERMANN 
SUETONIUS 
SWIFT,  JONATHAN 

SWINBURNE,  CHARLES 
SYMONDS,  JOHN  A. 
TCHEKOV,  ANTON 
rCHEKOV,  ANTON 

THACKERAY,  WILLIAM 
THACKERAY,  WILLIAM 
THOMPSON,  FRANCIS 
THOREAU,  HENRY  DAVID 
THUCYDIDES 
TOLSTOY,  LEO 
TOMLINSON,  H.  M. 
TROLLOPE,  ANTHONY 
TURGENEV,  IVAN 
VAN  LOON,  HENDRIK  W. 
VEBLEN,  THORSTEIN 
VIRGIL'S  WORKS 

VOLTAIRE 
WALPOLE,  HUGH 
WALTON,  IZAAK 
WEBB,  MARY 
WELLS,  H.  G. 
WHITMAN,  WALT 
WILDE,  OSCAR 
WILDE,  OSCAR 
WILDE,  OSCAR 
WOOLF,  VIRGINIA 
WOOLF,  VIRGINIA 
YEATS,  W.  B. 
YOUNG,  G.  F. 
ZOLA,  EMILE 
ZWEIG,  STEFAN 


The  Daring  \  uang  Man  on  the  Flying 

Trapeze  92 
The  Philosophy  of  Schopenhauer  51 
The  Story  of  a»  African  Farm  132 
Personal  History  32 
Humphry  Clinker  159 
The  Philosophy  of  Spinoza  60 
In  Dubious  Battle  115 
Tortilla  Flat  216 
Of  Mice  and  Men  29 
The  Charterhouse  of  Parma  150 
The  Red  and  the  Black  157 
Tristram  Shandy  I47 
Dracula  31 
Lust  for  Life  11 
Eminent  Victorians  212 
The  Song  of  Songs  162 
Lives  of  the  Twelve  Caesars  188 
Gulliver's  Travels,  A  Tale  of  a  Tub,  The 

Battle  of  the  Books  100 
Poems  23 

The  Life  of  Michelangelo  49 
Short  Stories  50 
Sea  Gull,  Cherry  Orchard,  Three  Si» 

ters,  etc.  171 
Henry  Esmond  80 
Vanity  Fair  131 
Complete  Poems  38 
Walden  and  Other  Writings  155 
The  Complete  Writings  of  58 
Anna  Karenina  37 
The  Sea  and  the  Jungle  99 
Barchester  Towers  and  The  Warden  41 
Fathers  and  Sons  21 
Ancient  Man  105 

The  Theory  of  the  Leisure  Class  62 
Including  The  Aeneid,  Eclogues,  an^ 

Georgics  75 
Candide  47 
Fortitude  178 
The  Compleat  Angler  26 
Precious  Bane  219 
Tono  Bungay  197 
Leaves  of  Grass  97 
Dorian  Gray,  De  Profundus  I 
The  Plays  of  Oscar  Wilde  83 
Poems  and  Fairy  Tales  84 
Mrs.  Dalloway  96 
To  the  Lighthouse  217 
Irish  Fairy  and  Folk  Tales  44 
The  Medici  179 
Nana  142 
Amok  (In  Collected  German  Steri«t  ictg 


MODERN  LIBRARY  GIANTS 

A  series  of  full-sixed  library  editions  of  books  that  formerly 
were  aoailabU  only  in  cumbersome  and  expensive  sets. 

THE  TEXTS  OF  THE  GIANTS  ARE  GUARAN- 
TEED TO  BE  COMPLETE.  AND  UNABRIDGED 

Many  are  illustrated  and  some  of  them  are  over  1200  pages  long. 


Gx.    TOLSTOY,  LEO.  War  and  Peace. 

Ga.     BOSWELL,  JAMES.  Life  of  Samuel  Johnson. 

G2,    HUGO,  VICTOR.  Lcs  Miserables. 

G4.    THE  COMPLETE  POEMS  OF  KEATS  AND  SHELLEY. 

G5.  ^PLUTARCH'S  LIVES  (The  Dryden  Translation). 

G6.\  GIBBON,  EDWARD.  The  Decline  and  FaU  of  the  Roman 

G7./       Empire  (Complete  in  two  volumes). 

G8.    THE  COMPLETE  NOVELS  OF  JANE  AUSTEN. 

G9.    YOUNG,  G.  F.  The  Medici  (lUustrated). 

Gio.  TWELVE  FAMOUS  RESTORATION  PLAYS  (1660-1820) 

(Congreve,  Wycherley,  Gay,  Goldsmith,  Sheridan,  etc.) 
Gii.  THE  ESSAYS  OF  MONTAIGNE  (The  Florio  Translation). 
G12.  THE    MOST    POPULAR    NOVELS    OF    SIR  WALTER 

SCOTT  (Quentin  Durward,  Ivanhoe,  and  Kenilworth). 
G13.  CARLYLE,  THOMAS.  The  French  Revolution  (Illustrated). 
G14.  BULFINCH'S  MYTHOLOGY  (lUustrated). 
G15.  CERVANTES.  Don  Quixote  (Illustrated). 
G16.  W'OLFE,  THOMAS.  Look  Homeward,  AngeL 
G17.  THE  POEMS  AND  PLAYS  OF  ROBERT  BROWNING. 
G18.  ELEVEN  PLAYS  OF  HENRIK  IBSEN. 
G19.  THE  COMPLETE  WORKS  OF  HOMER. 
G2o.\SYMONDS,  JOHN  ADDINGTON.  Renaissance  in  Italy. 
G21./     (Complete  in  two  volumes). 

G22.  STRACHEY,  JOHN.  The  Coming  Struggle  for  Power. 
G23.  TOLSTOY,  LEO.  Anna  Karenina. 
G24.  LAMB,   CHARLES.   The   Complete   Works   and  Lctten  of 

Charles  Lamb. 
G25.  THE  COMPLETE  PLAYS  OF  GILBERT  AND  SULLIVAN. 
G26.  MARX,  KARL.  Capital 
G27.  DARWIN,  CHARLES.  The  Origin  of  Species  and  The  Descent 

of  Man. 
GoS.  THE  COMPLETE  WORKS  OF  LEWIS  CARROLL. 


G29.  PRESCOTT,  WILLIAM  H.  The  Conquest  0/  Mexico  and 
The  Conquest  of  Peru. 

G30.  MYERS,    GUSTAVUS.    History   of  the    Great  Amerfcan 
Fortunes. 

G31.  WERFEL,  FRANZ.  The  Forty  Days  of  Musa  Dagh. 

G32.  SMITH,  ADAM.  The  Wealth  of  Nations. 

G33.  COLLINS,  WILKIE.  The  Moonstone  and  The  Woman  in  White. 

G34.  NIETZSCHE,  FRIEDRICH.  The  Philosophy  of  Nietzsche. 

G^S'  BURY,  J.  B.  A  History  of  Greece. 

G36.  DOSTOYEVSKY,  FYODOR.  The  Brothers  Karamazov. 

G37.  THE  COMPLETE  NOVELS  AND  SELECTED  TALES  OF 
NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 

G38.  ROLLAND,  ROMAIN.  Jean-Christophe. 

G39.  THE  BASIC  WRITINGS  OF  SIGMUND  FREUD. 

G40.  THE   COMPLETE   TALES   AND   POEMS  OF  EDGAR 
ALLAN  POE. 

G4I.  FARRELL,  JAMES  T.  Studs  Lonigan. 

G42.  THE  POEMS  AND  PLAYS  OF  TENNYSON. 

G43.  DEWEY,  JOHN.  Intelligence  in  the  Modern  World:  Joh» 
Dewey's  Philosophy. 

G44.  DOS  PASSOS,  JOHN.  U.  S.  A. 

G45.  LEWISOHN,  LUDWIG.  The  Story  of  American  Literature. 

G46.  A  NEW  ANTHOLOGY  OF  MODERN  POETRY. 

G47.  THE  ENGLISH  PHILOSOPHERS  FROM  BACON  TO, 
MILL. 

G48.  THE  METROPOLITAN  OPERA  GUIDE. 

G49.  TWAIN,  MARK.  Tom  Sawyer  and  Huckleberry  Finn. 

G50.  WHITMAN,  WALT.  Leaves  of  Grass. 

G51.  THE  BEST-KNOWN  NOVELS  OF  GEORGE  ELIOT. 

G52.  JOYCE,  JAMES.  Ulysses. 

G53.  SUE,  EUGENE.  The  Wandering  Jew. 

G54.  FIELDING,  HENRY.  Tom  Jones. 

G55.  O'NEILL,  EUGENE.  Nine  Plays  by 

Gs6.  STERNE,  LAURENCE.    Tristram   Shandy   and  A  Senti- 
mental Journey 


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